728 BUREAU OP AMETIICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Cremation and embalming are said to have been unknown. When 

 the Tattooed-serpent, the Great War Chief of the Natchez, died in 

 1725, guns were discharged to warn his people of the portentous 

 event, and the death cry was raised and repeated from town to town. 

 Water was thrown upon the fire in his dwelling as a signal that all 

 fires were to be extinguished throughout the nation, but this was, in 

 part at least, because the Great Sun himself, the civil head of the 

 nation, had expressed a determination to end his own life at the same 

 time. After the latter had been induced to change his mind, they 

 were relighted. The chiefs and relatives all cut their hair in accord- 

 ance with the common custom and all the property of the deceased 

 was thrown out of his cabin, perhaps in preparation for its destruc- 

 tion by fire, for this custom was usual among the nobility. From 

 this treatment of property must be excluded the guns, bow and 

 arrows, and war club of the deceased, which were tied to his bed. 

 Calumets he had received were placed ceremonially around his bed, 

 and from a pole nearby hung 46 rings of reddened cane splints indi- 

 cating the number of m.en and women he had killed. The fire burn- 

 ing in his house had been brought from the temple and could not be 

 used for ordinary purposes such as the lighting of a pipe. The 

 master of ceremonies for this occasion held a baton ornamented with 

 red and black feathers. Between the dead man's house and the 

 temple were a number of persons who were to be killed to accompany 

 him to the spirit world, each standing upon a platform with his or 

 her executioners. Among these were his wives, some of his officers, 

 and some persons who desired to obtain honor for their children or 

 children of persons who wished to obtain honor for themselves. 

 They had their hair daubed red and each held the shell of a river 

 mussel in the right hand and a calumet in the left hand. Six pills of 

 tobacco, previously blessed by a doctor, were swallowed by each 

 of the victims, so that they might lose consciousness, after which they 

 were strangled by means of cords. The body was borne on a litter 

 on the shoulders of a number of leading men, who approached the 

 temple in spirals, now nearer now farther off. The Tattooed-serpent, 

 his wives, and two leading men were buried in or near the temple, 

 but the bones of the Tattooed-serpent, at least, were subsequently 

 removed and placed in a hamper in the temple beside the hampers 

 holding the bones of other Suns. It is said that the bodies of some of 

 the victims were first placed on scaffolds and shut in until the flesh 

 could be removed from the bones, which, after a prescribed interval of 

 time, were placed in hampers, like the bones of the Tattooed-serpent 

 himself. It is said to have been customary in the Natchez nation to 

 weep for 3 days after the death of a leading man, but probably this 

 was really considered as 4 days (Swanton, 1911, pp. 138-157) . 



