swANTON] india:^ op the southeastern united states 535 



From these writers we have three excellent descriptions of tattooing 

 among the lower Mississippi tribes, applying more particularly to the 

 Natchez Indians. The first is from an anonymous memoir the mate- 

 rial in which antedates the year 1718. It is as follows : 



The greater part of the Indians have fantastic marks imprinted on the face, 

 the arms, the legs, and the thighs ; as to the body, this is a right which belongs 

 only to the warriors, and one must be noted for the death of some enemy in 

 order to merit this distinction. They imprint on the breasts of their heroes 

 an infinity of black, red, and blue lines ; which is not done without pain. They 

 begin by tracing the design on the skin, then with a needle or a little bone well 

 sharpened they prick until the blood comes, following the design, after which 

 they rub the punctures with a powder of the color that the one who has himself 

 marked demands. These colors having penetrated between the skin and flesh 

 are never effaced." (Anon., 1752, pp. 134-135.) 



The next is by Dumont de Montigny : 



But the greatest ornament of all these savages of both sexes consists in cer- 

 tain figures of suns, serpents, or other things, which they carry pictured on their 

 bodies in the manner of the ancient Britons, of whom Caesar tells us in his 

 Commentaries. The warriors, as well as the wives of the chiefs and the 

 Honored men, have these figures pictured on the face, arms, shoulders, thighs, 

 legs, but principally on the belly and breast. It is for them not only an orna- 

 ment, but also a mark of honor and distinction, which is acquired only after 

 many brave deeds, and this is the way in which these pictures are made: 

 First, in accordance with the color that is desired, a man makes either a black 

 mixture of pine charcoal or, indeed, of gunpowder dissolved in water, or a red 

 of cinnabar or vermilion. After this five medium-sized sewing needles are 

 taken, which are arranged on a little flat, smooth piece of wood and fastened 

 to the same depth, so that one point does not extend out beyond the others. 

 These needles are then soaked in the color and moved quickly, being applied 

 lightly to the design, which had before been traced on the body, and the color 

 insinuates itself between the skin and the flesh through these needle holes. 

 This operation never fails to give the subject a fever, and a mange rises on 

 the skin, which afterward dries and falls into dust, but the figure imprinted 

 on the flesh through these needle prickings, whether in red or black, is never 

 effaced. It is carried to the tomb. (Dumont, 1753, vol. 1, pp. 139-140; Swan- 

 ton, 1911, pp. 56-57.) 



Finally, let us hear Du Pratz : 



From youth the women have a line tattooed across the highest part of the nose, 

 some in the middle of the chin from above downward, others in different places, 

 especially the women of those nations which have an r in their language [i.e., the 

 Tunica and their allies], I have seen some of them tattooed over the entire 

 upper part of the body. Even the breast was tattooed all over, though this part of 

 the body is extremely sensitive. . . 



The youths also have themselves tattooed on the nose, and not elsewhere until 

 they are warriors and have performed some valorous act. But when they have 

 killed some enemy and have brought back his scalp, they have a right to have 

 themselves tattooed and to adopt ornaments with figures suitable to the occasion. 



These tattooings are so much in vogue among the natives that there are neither 



="* Swanton, 1911, p. 56 ; gunpowder was also adopted by the Cherokee (Timberlake, 

 Williams ed., 1927, p. 75). 



