SWANTON] 1NI>IANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED SfTATES 733 



to the lust of as many men as chose to have intercourse with her and 

 then cast off to become a temporaiy wife or prostitute. If, however, 

 she belonged to a higher family than her husband, she might escape 

 this fate. Theft within the tribe was punished in later times by 

 whipping and the imposition of fines. The Choctaw swore by the sun, 

 but there is a difference of opinion regarding their general veracity. 

 They are said to have been exceedingly clever beggars (Swanton, 

 1931a, pp. 104-114). 



Du Pratz affirms that the Natchez parents did not beat their chil- 

 dren and that the old man who trained them stopped short with 

 threatenings of various kinds, among which he mentions threats of 

 banishment. It is evident that the tooth-f or-tooth philosophy also ob- 

 tained among these people, but it is equally evident that a crime com- 

 mitted by one of the Sun caste was lightly regarded as compared 

 with one committed against the Sun caste. Upon commoners the 

 death penalty was inflicted by the Great Sun ad libitum (Le Page du 

 Pratz, 1758, vol. 2, pp. 319-321 ; Swanton, 1911, p. 88) . 



For Caddo usages, see Bureau of American Ethnology Bullet hi 132 

 (Swanton, 1942, pp. 183-184). 



MEANS OF COMMUNICATION 



Some of these, particularly communication by mnemonic devices 

 (see pp. 610-613) have been treated already. Such an incredibly 

 small number of explorers were sufficiently interested in Indian usages 

 to set down their impressions that customs and devices which must 

 have been matters of everyday knowledge to them are mentioned 

 only occasionally. Among these we may refer to fire or smoke sig- 

 naling, which is apparently noted in Carolina and along the 

 Chesapeake in Virginia, by De Soto's followers when they came to 

 land at Tampa Bay, by the western Seminole and Creeks, and by the 

 Chickasaw (Swanton, 1928. p. 446; 1928 c, p. 246; Percy in Tyler, 

 1907, pp. 10-11). 



Adair notes the transmission of news by means of intoned whoops, 

 and he is the only one to speak of a sign language : 



The present American aborigines seem to be as skillful pantomimi as ever 

 were those of ancient Greece or Rome or the modern Turkish mutes, who de- 

 scribe the meanest things spoken by gestures, action, and the passions of the 

 face. Two far-distant Indian nations, who understand not a word of each 

 other's language, will intelligibly converse together and contract engagements 

 without an interpreter in such a surprising manner as is scarcely credible. 

 (Adair, 1775, p. 79.) 



From what we are told of the representation of the Creek migra- 

 tion legend on a bison skin which Chekilli gave to Governor 

 Oglethorpe, it is evident that a pictographic system was in use 



