158 CRANIA AMERICANA. 



The Natchez not only worshipped the sun, but kept what they termed the 

 eternal fire ; which last they accomplished hy slowly burning a torch made of 

 three pieces of wood joined at one end.* 



Their hereditary usages were very remarkable, and constituted, in fact, a 

 feudal system of the most exclusive kind. They called their principal chief the 

 Great Sun^ and the nobles and their children were called suns; while all that 

 portion of the tribe not allied to these dignitaries, were stigmatised by an epithet 

 equivalent to the English word rabble. Yet what is even more singular, nobility 

 was derived and transmitted exclusively through the female sex. 



The character of these people was more pacific than that of most other 

 American tribes. They rarely make wars, says Charlevoix, nor place their glory 

 in destroying their fellow creatures; but, once excited to revenge by repeated 

 provocation, their resentment is appeased only by the extermination of their 

 enemies. The fate of the first French colony in their nation is a tragical 

 illustration of this fact, and may be told in a few" words. The French, by 

 repeated aggressions, aroused the vengeance of a people who had assiduously 

 cultivated their friendship. A plan w^as concerted by the Indians for destroying 

 their enemies in a single night ; and with such fidelity was this secret maintained, 

 that on the eve of St. Andrew, A. D. 17^9, they fell upon the hapless colony, and 

 of seven hundred Europeans, all except a mere handful w^ere massacred without 

 mercy. 



We have only to add the uniform result of such resistance on the part of the 

 Indians. The French entered the country of the Natchez in great force, and this 

 injured people, after a valiant struggle, w^as at last dispersed and almost extermi- 

 nated in the year 1730.t 



It is a singular circumstance in the character of these people, that they were 

 in the practice of funeral sacrifices to an extent unknown elsewhere in America 



* Charlevoix, Voy, de PAmerique, Let. XXX. 



t The French sold their Natchez prisoners, inckiding a chief, into slavery in the West India 

 Islands. Such of the Natchez as escaped the fate of their country, fled up Red River, in Louisiana, 

 and encamped six miles below the town of Natchitoches. Monsieur St. Dennie, a French Canadian, 

 was then Commandant at Natchitoches : he collected what soldiers and militia he had at his disposal, 

 and these being joined by the Natchitoches Indians, the Natchez were attacked in their camp by the 

 whole force. The besieged " defended themselves desperately for six hours, but were at length totally 

 defeated by St. Dennie, and such of them as were not killed in battle, were driven into the lake, where 

 the last of them perished, and the Natchez as a nation became extinct.''— Sibley, Message from the 

 President of the U. S., 1806, p. 80. 



