566 CERTAIN MOUNDS ОЕ ARKANSAS AND ОЕ MISSISSIPPI. 
There can be little doubt that in early times the Natchez-Yazoo region had a 
comparatively considerable population. 
Du Pratz attributes the great falling off in numbers of the Natchez tribe in 
his time (1720) to the many human sacrifices following the death of the greater 
and inferior “suns,” or nobles, which, he says, were more destructive than the 
havoc wrought by war. 
But the Natchez had their wars also, for, although Charlevoix, speaking of 
them in 1721, says they rarely go to war and do not glory in the destruction of 
men, de Montigny, who saw them in 1699, speaks of them as then at war “with 
almost all the nations on the Mississippi." 1 
De la Vente, who visited the lower Mississippi river in 1704, found most of 
the peoples there at war. “I could not say for how long back," he says, “ their 
chief glory has been to take a few scalps from their enemies on the slightest pre- 
text." М. de la Vente adds that the English gave the Indians firearms and incited 
them to make war on each other in order that they (the English) could obtain 
slaves thereby. 
Parenthetically, it may be said that the English were not wholly to blame in 
the distribution of firearms. ОҒ Indians of Mississippi we are told by Father 
Membré, who went down the Mississippi in 1682, that “they have also axes and 
guns, which they procure from the Spaniards, sixty-five or more leagues off." ? 
Presumably all the causes given were contributory to the lessening of the num- 
ber of aborigines, to which may be added the introduction of smallpox and of 
‘alcoholic drink. 
We shall now describe our work on the Yazoo and Sunflower rivers. Ав 
noted in previous memoirs, it is our practice to have agents, who are accustomed 
to the work, travel in advance over the region, the investigation of which we have 
in view, in order exactly to determine the situation of mounds and cemeteries, and 
to obtain the names and addresses of the owners; thus, in the winter season, in 
our flat-bottomed steamer, with a large force to dig, including many who have been 
in our service before, we go directly to work on such mounds, whose owners have 
accorded us permission. 
Preceding our work, Mr. J. S. Raybon, captain of our steamer, who has trav- 
eled for a number of seasons to discover mounds for us, accompanied by a compan- 
ion, carefully searched the Yazoo river from Sharkey to its union with the Missis- 
віррі, a distance of about 257 miles by water, and also covered the Sunflower from 
Faisonia to its junction with the Yazoo—about 96 miles, following the course of 
the stream. 
After about one month’s continuous work on the Yazoo and Sunflower rivers 
1M. Abbé Amédée Gosselin, “ Les Sauvages du Mississippi," Congrès International des Améri- 
canistes, Québec, is Vol. I, p 43. 
2 Ibid., р. 43, et seq. 
BF к Hist. Coll. of La. and Fla., New York, 1875, p. 25, footnote. 
