652 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



to have accompanied these changes. Possibly this was due to the 

 entrance of a new element from the nqrth such as is represented by 

 the Cherokee and Yuchi among whom there is little evidence of a 

 developed aristocracy, or it may be attributable to a late wave of Mus- 

 kogee. Although the Abihka Creeks are mentioned in the De Luna 

 documents dating i lom 1560 to 1561, they were probably late comers, 

 and, since Hawkins notes that the later form of the punishment meted 

 out to adulterers originated with them, they may have brought about 

 other changes. Yet, after all, the Choctaw seem to have been among 

 the most democratic of all southern tribes, and they were planted in 

 the heart of the south as far back as our records go. Probably the im- 

 pressions of chieftainship imbibed by the Spaniards were in part due 

 to their European prepossessions and in part based on actual conditions 

 which later events modified. 



Tascalusa presents us with a somewhat different problem. In the 

 first place it is evident that he owed nauch of his authority to physical 

 strength and force of character. His state, however, was not remark- 

 able, certainly not on a par with that which surrounded the Great 

 Sun. Eanjel says that 



he was seated on some high cushions and many of the principal men among his 

 Indians were with him. . . . Before this chief there stood always an Indian of 

 graceful mien holding a parasol on a handle something like a round and very 

 large fly fan . . . 



ornamented in a manner already described. When they left that place 

 to go to Mobile, two Indians always remained in attendance upon 

 him, one with the sunshade and one with a cushion (Bourne, 1904, vol. 

 2, pp. 151-152) . Elvas also mentions the sunshade, if such it really was, 

 and cushions (Robertson, 1933, p. 124). There is nothing in all this 

 to indicate that the power of the Mobile chief was exceptional, but even 

 if it was, the terrible losses his tribe suffered in the battle with the 

 Spaniards would have served to reduce not only the tribe but the state 

 of its head for all future time. In any case there is no evidence that 

 it was founded on a long-descended body of custom, a caste system, or 

 religious sanctions. The "state" of the chief of Coga, the Chickasaw 

 chief, and the chieftainess of Cofitachequi was expressed mainly by 

 the fact that they were borne about in litters. 



While some of the later Creek chiefs attained great authority, they 

 owed little of this to inheritance, theocratic institutions, or caste. 

 There seems to have been a special thread of authority resident in 

 the Coweta chief, possibly descended from the days of old Cofitachequi, 

 but it carried little with it beyond a certain amount of prestige. As 

 the Lower Creek chief William Mcintosh favored the claims of the 

 white inhabitants of Georgia, he and his supporters made an effort to 

 show that the authority of Coweta was paramount over that of all the 



