CREEK OBSEQUIES. 273 
deceased, the criminal is executed with the 
same kind of weapon, or, if possible, the 
very same, with which he committed the 
murder. 
Most inferior crimes, as has been mention- 
ed, are punished by whipping: for the first 
offence of stealing, fifty lashes; for the second, 
a hundred and ears cropped. Adultery is 
punished by cutting off both the nose and 
ears of the adulteress; but the husband has a 
right to say if the law shall be executed : in 
fact, he is generally the executioner, and that 
often without trial. Notwithstanding the se- 
verity of these laws, they are for the most part 
rigorously enforced; though a commutation 
satisfactory to the aggrieved is still permitted 
to release the offender. Their laws, in cases 
of accidental homicide, are still more barba- 
rously rigid than those of the other nations. 
The obsequies of the Creeks are peculiar 
in this,—that at the moment an ian ex- 
pires, a gun is discharged. Their graves are 
generally under the floors of their dwellings, 
and a husband’s is apt to be under the bed of 
his widow. The fate of the unfortunate re- 
lict is miserable enough in any country, but 
among the Creeks her doom is barbarously 
rigorous. She remains in strict mourning for 
four a. with dishevelled hair and with- 
custom seems to have —o from antiquity. Adair, 
prior to VW7 5, writes, that «« The Muscohge widows are obliged to 
tery being executed epee the recusants.” But I have not heard 
this custom spoken of among the Chickasaws at the present day. 
