248 BELIEFS AND USAGES OF CHICKASAW [BTH. ANN. 44 
Beloved Things above; the clouds, the sun, the clear sky, and He 
that lives in the clear sky.” ° Adair’s references to Ababinili all 
indicate solar or celestial associations. He calls him ‘“ Loak-Ishto- 
hoollo-Aba,” “the great holy fire above,” and says that he “resides 
(as they think) above the clouds, and on earth also with unpolluted 
people. He is with them the sole author of warmth, light, and of 
all animal and vegetable life.”°® In another place he remarks, 
“they worship God, in a smoke and cloud, believing him to reside 
above the clouds, and in the element of the, supposed, holy annual 
fire.” °? And, again: “ Though they believe the upper heavens to 
be inhabited by Ishtohoollo Aba, and a great multitude of inferior 
good spirits, yet they are firmly persuaded that the divine omni- 
present Spirit of fire and light resides on the earth, in their annual 
sacred fire while it is unpolluted; and that he kindly accepts their 
lawful offerings, if their own conduct is agreeable to the old divine 
law, which was delivered to their forefathers.” ** 
To this point the excerpts merely suggest a solar deity, but else- 
where the same author quotes a Chickasaw seer to the effect that “ he 
very well knew, the giver of virtue to nature resided on earth in the 
unpolluted holy fire, and likewise above the clouds and the sun, 
in the shape of a fine fiery substance, attended by a great many 
beloved people.” °° Here the supreme being is differentiated from 
the sun, and perhaps we are to understand by the “fine fiery sub- 
stance” the shining, overarching sky. This view is strengthened 
by the unimpressive idea of the solar body which the Chickasaw 
high priest in Adair’s time entertained. “It might possibly,” he 
said, “be as broad and round as his winter-house; but he thought 
it could not well exceed it.” ° 
In the absence of proof that the Chickasaw had a busk ceremonial 
or anything corresponding to it, I hardly know how to interpret the 
references to the ceremonial fire, though they have applicability in 
the case of the Creeks. Sacred fires were so common in the South- 
east, however, that it is probable the Chickasaw kindled them at 
times. 
Tn one place Adair calls the supreme being “ Ishtohoollo Aba Eloa ” 
(the big holy one above who thunders) ,** and he says that the power 
of distributing rain at his pleasure “belonged only to the great be- 
loved thundering Chieftain, who dwells far above the clouds, in the 
& Jones, Hist. of Savaunah, p, 85. 
6 Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., p. 19. 
® Tbid., p. 35. 
68 Tbid., p. 116. 
% Tbid., pp. 92-93. 
 Thid., p. 19. 
™ See Forty-second Ann. Rept. Bur, Amer, Ethn., pp. 33-74; 546-613. 
72 Adair, op. cit., p. 94. 
