SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 617 



My above-mentioned informant asserted that the front pillars in 

 the Square Ground of Tukabahchee were carved like alligators, and 

 those of the Koasati square like garfishes. He showed me a stone 

 pipe made by an old Tukabahchee Indian on which was the carving 

 of an alligator. It is evident that the gar was held in considerable 

 reverence by the Koasati Indians, and we have the testimony of Swan 

 as eyewitness that participants in the garfish dance in this town 

 bore carved images of the gar in their hands. Mention may also be 

 made of the notched posts set up in front of the pillars in old Creek 

 grounds which were intended to represent war clubs. Before leav- 

 ing the Creeks we must note the representations of fish surmounting 

 ball posts in the Fish Pond towns, and a carved wooden eagle on the 

 top of the ball post at Eufaula. In 1820 Hodgson noted a carved 

 wooden bird on the Kasihta ball post. Adair tells us that a wooden 

 eagle was usually put at the very summit of the center post of the 

 tcokofa of the Chickasaw and Creeks (Adair, 1775, p. 419), but these 

 recall rather the temple figures alluded to already. 



In the house of the head chief of Asao (St. Simons Island) on 

 the Georgia coast, San Miguel saw "near the door, the face directed 

 toward it, a little idol or human figure badly fashioned: its ears 

 were made of those of a coyote and its tail was from the same coyote, 

 the rest of the body being painted red" (Garcia, 1902, p. 196). 



For coyote we should evidently substitute timber wolf. 



Later, a soldier told him that this image was made in contempt in 

 imitation of a sailor whom they had killed when he was attempting 

 to pass through their countr}'' (Garcia, 1902, p. 205). 



Aside from the wooden birds, there is one interesting mention of 

 a carving or group of carvings in the Mississippi towns. This was 

 at the entrance of the Houma temple and has a distant analogy to the 

 carved gaints about the temple of Talomeco, though the subject seems 

 to have been cliiferent. Gravier first described this : 



There is nothing fine about the temple except the vestibule, which is em- 

 bellished with the most pleasing and best executed grotesque figures that one 

 can see. These are four satyrs, two of which are in relief, all four standing 

 out from the wall, and having on their heads, their hands, and their legs — for 

 fillets, bracelets, garters, baldrics, and belts — snakes, mice, and dogs. The 

 colors are black, white, red, and yellow, and are applied so well and with such 

 absence of confusion that they constitute an agreeably surprising spectacle. 



At a later date the Tunica Indians expelled the Houma from this vil- 

 lage and occupied it, but the ornamentation about the Tunica chief's 

 house which Charlevoix notes in 1721 was probably identical with 

 that just described : "The cabin of the chief is much adorned on the 

 outside for the cabin of a savage. We see on it some figures in 

 relievo, which are not so ill done as one expects to find them." 



