SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 651 



The chief is very absolute, as are all those of Florida. He never hunts or 

 shoots but for his diversion, for his subjects are obliged to give him part of their 

 game. (French, 1851, p. 182; S wanton, 1911, p. 300.) 



In the Chitimacha tribe proper there is evidence of a caste system 

 which seems to have been a true one, the castes being endogamous, 

 unlike the castes among the Natchez. There was a chief in each 

 town and a head chief under whom were a number of officers called 

 netekmesh (nete'xmec) (Swanton, 1911, pp. 348-349). 



Dr. Gatschet's Atakapa informants told of certain chiefs whose au- 

 thority extended over a number of towns,^^ but any tendencies of this 

 kind are probably to be attributed to influences emanating from the 

 Chitimacha and other peoples farther east. 



The Caddo chiefs apparently occupied an intermediate position, 

 by no means on a level with the chiefs of the Natchez nor yet on the 

 plane of the Wichita or Tonkawa, but they were under a sort of priest 

 king, called xinesi^ whose powers were very great. 



We have now completed a circuit of the Gulf region from Chesa- 

 peake Bay along the coasts and nearer hinterlands of the Atlantic and 

 Gulf to the mouth of the Mississippi and up that river and the Red 

 to the borders of the Plains. It remains to consider the territory in- 

 land, the region of the great corn-raising nations. If we compare the 

 position of chiefs indicated in the narratives of De Soto, who, as we 

 know, cut through the very heart of this territory in the early part of 

 the sixteenth century, with the descriptions of later writers, we appear 

 to get very diflrerent ideas of the status of chiefs in the region covered. 

 No doubt much of this difference is attributable to the tendency of the 

 Spaniards to identify American institutions with European ones, but 

 their representations as to the status of some of these chiefs are so 

 completely borne out by certain later writers, French and English, 

 that we cannot discard their testimony altogether. Thus the inhabit- 

 ants of the provinces of Anilco, Guachoya, Aminoya, Teguanate, and 

 as far north as Quiguate were in all probability related to, or ancestors 

 of, the later Taensa and Natchez, and from certain statements in the De 

 Soto narratives we may be assured that their customs were similar. 

 Nor is it strange that we should find absolutism or caste tendency in 

 Florida similar to that noted in later times. 



Our main difficulties are with what we read regarding the chief- 

 tainess of Cofitachequi, undoubtedly closely related to the Lower 

 Creeks of the historic period, the chief of Coga, and the chief of the 

 Mobile, the famed Tascalusa. So far as the two former are concerned, 

 there is evidence of very considerable changes in some of the institu- 

 tions of the two people between the early sixteenth century and the 

 late seventeenth century. A certain amount of democratization seems 



»2 Notes in Gatschet and Swanton, 1932, p. 11. 



