778 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Chickasaw. According to Wright, a man was believed to have two 

 souls. The shilombish, or outside shadow, became a ghost after 

 his death and frequently assumed the form and imitated the cries of a 

 fox or owl. The shilup, or inside shadow, went to the land of souls 

 after death where those who had committed murder were segregated 

 and consigned to a kind of hell. It was on account of the approaching 

 journey of the shilup to the land of souls that the body of the deceased 

 was provided with food and clothing and various implements. There 

 seems to have been the same delay of the soul (shilup) in taking up its 

 journey to the west until its death had been avenged that we have 

 found elsewhere. 



There w^s a marked paucity in ceremonies of a religious nature as 

 might have been anticipated from the character of Choctaw culture. 

 Mention is made of a "green corn dance," lasting 5 days, and there can 

 be no reasonable doubt that such a ceremony existed but we have only 

 fragmentary notes regarding it. Some say that the Choctaw formerly 

 had Pishofa dances, but others affirm that, if there were any at all, 

 they were borrowed from the Chickasaw. They had numerous dances 

 of a social or semisocial character and at some of these they wore 

 masks. Catlin was very much struck by the eagle dance and has left 

 us a painting of it. To what extent religious rites and religious 

 emotions entered into these it is no longer possible to say. 



So far as can be made out, the Choctaw had two classes of medicine 

 men, those who used occult means and arrogated to themselves the 

 gift of prophecy, and mere physic makers. The former, however, 

 performed in part the functions of the latter. From the meager 

 notices vouchsafed to us, it would appear that medicine men of the 

 first class went through ordeals in order to reach their station some- 

 what like those which prospective Creek priests underwent. They 

 claimed to be able to foretell events and to see what was taking place 

 at a distance, and many of the Frenchmen believed in them. Here 

 again we find a distinct class of rain makers from whom the fair- 

 weather makers were distinguished, and there was the same belief in 

 witchcraft. We also hear of an herb used in producing rain. As 

 among the Creeks, twins were thought to have peculiar powers and 

 here again they were beneficent rather than the reverse (Swanton 

 1931a, pp. 194-241). 



Before passing on, reference may be made to certain interesting 

 sacred objects discovered in Mobile Bay when the French founded 

 Louisiana. The chances are that they have been lost, but possibly 

 they may yet turn up in France. On March 4, 1702, soon after the 

 first fort had been started in Mobile Bay, at Twenty-seven Mile Bluff, 

 Iberville sent his brother Bienville "to visit many abandoned settle- 

 ments of the savages," in the islands in the neighborhood. Iberville 

 says that his brother 



