SwANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 777 



Speck indicates a vestigial observance of the kind, but it evidently 

 dropped out of use later, the principal ritual known to them then 

 being the Pishofa ceremony held mainly to restore a sick person to 

 health. It was naturally enough regimented by the shaman, and 

 everything connected with it was directed to rehabilitation of the 

 patient through suggestion. The ceremony of the black drink also 

 seems to have been known to them. Adair was the beneficiary of 

 a ceremony to keep off witches. 



At least some of the shamans or doctors enjoyed official positions, 

 and Adair speaks as if there were a head priest over the entire na- 

 tion. They treated the sick by perambulations, by appeals to various 

 animals, and by sympathetic magic. The Chickasaw had rain makers 

 like the Creeks and an ineradicable belief in witches and wizards 

 (Swanton, 1928 c, pp. 247-263). 



Even comparatively early missionaries lament that the Choctaw 

 were relatively indifferent to religion, but there is evident, neverthe- 

 less, the sky deity concept and its association with the sun along 

 with numerous subordinate beings, among which we may recognize 

 the ever-present pygmies, a spirit combining the characteristics of 

 man and deer, white spirits living in water pools, a malevolent spirit 

 able to read men's thoughts, a "Long Black Being," humanlike but 

 with small eyes and long pointed ears, and something which looks 

 like a personification of the will-o'-the-wisp. The horned owl ap- 

 pears as a sinister character apparently associated with witchcraft. 

 The cry of the screech owl portended sudden death, the sapsucker 

 brought news of all kinds, and domestic fowl were supposed to give 

 friendly warning of approaching trouble. 



The world was believed to be flat, and the vault of heaven a solid 

 shell upon which lived other beings, undoubtedly including the sky 

 god. In the beginning the earth was flat and marshy, and while it 

 was still in that condition a being in human form descended from 

 above and caused the sacred hill of Nanih Waiya to arise, out of which 

 he then brought the red people. After that, hills were formed and 

 the earth dried, and later men came into possession of corn. Their 

 social and political institutions were revealed to them at Nanih 

 Waiya. An earlier form of the legend brings the Choctaw to Nanih 

 Waiya from the west. We have a number of versions of the flood 

 myth, most of which show traces of white contamination. Solar 

 eclipses were attributed to a black squirrel or black squirrels en- 

 deavoring to swallow the sun. Thunder and Lightning were rep- 

 resented to Bushnell as two great birds. There are several stories of 

 the origin of corn, which was of immense consequence in the economy 

 of this tribe. 



The attitude toward charms, sacrifices, and dreams was evidently 

 identical with what has been noted in connection with the Creeks and 



