SWANTON] RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IN GENERAL QAT 
quotation from Adair there must have been some sort of sign lan- 
guage: 
The present American aborigines seem to be as skilful pantomimi as ever 
were those of ancient Greece or Rome or the modern Turkish mutes, who 
describe the meanest things spoken by gesture, action, and the passions of the 
face. Two far-distant Indian nations, who understand not a word of each 
other’s language, will intelligbly converse together and contract engagements 
without an interpreter in such a surprising manner as is scarcely credible.” 
He has the following on travel: 
When the Indians are traveling in their own country they inquire for a house 
of their own tribe [i. e., clan]; and if there be any, they go to it, and are 
kindly received, though they never saw the persons before—they eat, drink, and 
regale themselves with as much freedom as at their own tables, which is the 
solid ground covered with a bearskin. It is their usual custom to carry nothing 
along with them in their journies but a looking-glass and red paint hung to 
their back—their gun and shot pouch—or bow and quiver full of barbed arrows; 
and frequently both gun and bow; for, as they are generally in a state of war 
against each other, they are obliged as soon as able to carry those arms of de- 
fence. Every town has a state-house, or synedrion, as the Jewish sanhedrin 
[i.e., the tcokofa] where almost every night the headmen convene about public 
business or the town’s-people to feast, sing, dance, and rejoice, . . . as will fully 
be described hereafter. And if a stranger calls there, he is treated with the great- 
est civility and hearty kindness—he is sure to find plenty of their simple home 
fare and a large cane-bed covered with the softened skins of bears or buffaloes 
to sleep on. But when his lineage is known to the people (by a stated custom 
they are slow in greeting one another), his relation, if he has any there, ad- 
dresses him in a familiar way, invites him home, and treats him as his 
kinsman.” 
The usual Chickasaw form of salutation when one person came to 
visit another was as follows: The householder would say Icla teo? 
(“ Are you come?”) and the guest would reply Alali-o (“I am 
come.”’) .°4 
RELIGIOUS BELIEFS IN GENERAL 
The Chickasaw have not even the tradition of a time when they 
were without belief in one supreme being whom they call Ababinili, 
“ Sitting-above,” or “ Dwelling-above,” a being who “guided them 
and told them what to do.” He is now spoken of at times as Aba- 
inki, “ Father-above,” evidently under Christian influence, and under 
the same influence human beings came to be named aba hatak, 
“ Men-from-above.” 
In spite of the Christian accretions, it seems fairly clear that there 
was anciently belief in a supreme, but hardly a sole, deity associated 
with the sky or sun. A multiplicity of celestial powers is suggested 
by the Chickasaw who told John Wesley that they regarded “ four 
® Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., p. 79. ®3 Tbid., pp. 17-18. *Tbid., p. 60. 
