SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 613 



the months were indicated by moons, and the days in addition by I's of this 

 kind, if help is urgently needed, only as many I's were marked as days were 

 needed to make the journey ; the nation to be attacked was indicated by the 

 figure proper to it. The number of warriors is not indicated, the chiefs of the 

 nations send their warriors ; it is known what each nation is able to furnish, and 

 so one makes his intention known to as many chiefs as are necessary to 

 furnish the number of men desired. Arrows also indicate war but only in 

 declaring it, there are then two arrows in the form of a St. Andrews cross 

 broken. (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, vol. 1, pp. 300-301.) 



ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT 



If we may trust early writers, artistic development in the South- 

 east turned in the direction of ornamentation of the human body by 

 means of tattooings and paintings. There were also paintings on 

 hides, designs on basketry and mats, modeling and painting of pots, 

 beadwork, — and possibly some work in imported porcupine quills. 

 Along the Mississippi and as far east as Florida, it was customary 

 to place carved images of birds, usually three, on the roofs of the 

 temples. In the town of Ucita in Tampa Bay, where De Soto 

 landed, was a temple upon which was a wooden bird with its eyes 

 "gilded" (Robertson, 1933, p. 33). In the Choctaw country, Adair 

 observed on each of the mortuary houses in a certain town "the carved 

 image of a dove, with its wings stretched out, and its head inclining 

 down, as if earnestly viewing or watching over the bones of the dead" 

 (Adair, 1775, p. 193). The three wooden images of birds on the 

 roof of the Taensa temple are said to have been intended for eagles, 

 and sometimes the same thing is stated of the wooden birds on the 

 roof of the Natchez temple. (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 1, p. 602; 

 Thwaites, 1897-1901, vol. 68, pp. 122-123; Swanton, 1911, pp. 260, 

 269.) Du Pratz, however, is noncommittal. He merely says that 

 they were 



representations of three great birds [carved] on flat pieces of wood. They are 

 twice as large as a goose. They have no feet. The neck is not as long as that 

 of a goose, and the head does not resemble one. The wing feathers are large 

 and very distinct. The ground color is white and they are mingled with 

 feathers of a beautiful red color. (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, vol. 3, pp. 17-18; 

 Swanton, 1911, p. 162.) 



Of the Acolapissa temple we should know nothing apart from the 

 bare fact of its existence except for the fortunate recovery of the De 

 Batz drawing of the temple by Mr. Bushnell. The wooden figures on 

 the temple, the artist explains, had bodies and tails representing tur- 

 keys, and the head that of an eagle. Possibly all of the other figures 

 were really of the same composite nature (Bushnell, 1927, p. 3, pi. 1). 



A series of images which seem to be related to each other, but are dis- 

 tinct from those just given, appear among the tribes toward the At- 

 lantic. First we have noted the wooden images about the temple of 



