616 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETITNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



each one according to his means. (Anghierra, 1912, vol. 2, pp. 261-263; Swan- 

 ton, 1922, pp. 43-44.) 



Some Creek towns also possessed carved figures. The earliest men- 

 tion of one of these seems to be by Adair : 



There is a carved human statue of wood, to which, however, they pay no 

 religious homage: It belongs to the head war-town of the upper Muskohge 

 country, and seems to have been originally designed to perpetuate the memory of 

 some distinguished hero, who deserved well of his country; for, when their 

 cussecna, or bitter, black drink is about to be drank In the synhedrion, they 

 frequently, on common occasions, will bring it there, and honour it with the 

 first conch-shell-full, by the hand of the chief religious attendant : and then 

 they return it to its foimer place. It is observable, that the same beloved waiter, 

 or holy attendant, and his co-adjutant, equally observe the same ceremony to 

 every person of reputed merit, in that quadrangular place. When I past that 

 way, circumstances did not allow me to view this singular figure ; but I am 

 assured by several of the traders, who have frequently seen it, that the carving 

 is modest, and very neatly finished, not unworthy of a modern civilized artist. 

 (Adair, 1775, p. 25.) 



Again : 



I have seen in several of the Indian synhedria, two white painted eagles 

 carved out of poplar wood, with their wings stretched out, and raised five feet 

 off the ground, standing at the corner, close to their red and white imperial 

 seats: and, on the inner side of each of the deep-notched pieces of wood, 

 where the eagles stand, the Indians frequently paint, with a chalky clay, the 

 figure of a man, with buffalo horns — and that of a panther with the same 

 colour. 



Near to the red and white imperial seats, they have the representation of 

 a full moon, and either a half moon, or a breastplate, raised five or six feet 

 high at the front of the broad seats, and painted with chalky clay ; sometimes 

 black paintings are intermixed. (Adair, 1775, pp. 30-31.) 



Mention of carved eagles recalls a statement made by one of my 

 own informants to the effect that the Coweta Indians used to have 

 a wooden figure resembling a spotted eagle represented with blood 

 dripping from its mouth, and that whenever an important council 

 was to be held it was brought out and set up in the ground in front 

 of the miko's seat facing east. 



The front posts in some of the Square Grounds were carved. 

 Speaking of Atasi, Bartram says : 



The pillars and walls of the houses of the square are decorated with various 

 paintings and sculptures ; which I suppose to be hieroglyphic, and as a historic 

 legendary of political and sacerdotal affairs: but they are extremely picturesque 

 or caricature, as men in a variety of attitudes, some ludicrous enough, others 

 having the head of some kind of animal, as those of a duck, turkey, bear, fox, 

 wolf, buck, &c. and again those kind of creatures are represented having the 

 human head. These designs are not ill executed; the outlines bold, free and 

 well proportioned The pillars supporting the front or piazza of the council- 

 house of the square, are ingeniously formed in the likeness of vast speckled 

 serpents, ascending upwards; the Ottasses being of the snake family or tribe. 

 (Bartram, 1791, p. 454.) 



