S WANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 779 



made a savage show him the place where their gods are, of which all the 

 nations in the neighborhood tell so many stories, and where the Mobilians come 

 to offer sacrifices. They pretend that one can not touch them without 

 dying immediately ; that they are descended from heaven. It was necessary 

 to give a gun to the savage who showed the place to them. He approached 

 them only stealthily and to within ten paces. They found them by searching 

 on a little rise in the canes, near an ancient destroyed village in one of these 

 iislands. They brought them out. They are five figures: of a man, a woman, 

 a child, a bear, and an owl, made in plaster so as to look like the savages of 

 this country. For my part I think it was some Spaniard who, at the time of 

 De Soto, made in plaster the figures of these savages. It appeared that that 

 had been done a long time ago. We have them at the establishment; the 

 savages, who see them there, are surprised at our hardihood and that we 

 do not die. I am bringing them to France although they are not much of 

 a curiosity. (Margry, 1875-1886, vol. 4, pp. 512-513; Swanton, 1922, p. 161.) 



Its state religion was the most important factor in the life of the 

 Natchez nation. While their cult included, and in fact depended upon, 

 the supposition of a great body of minor beings, called characteristi- 

 cally servant spirits, there was a single supreme deity, living in the sky 

 world, and closely connected with the sun, if not identical with it. 

 At some period in the remote past the son of this deity had descended 

 to earth, brought civilization to the Natchez Indians, given them their 

 laws and social and ceremonial usages, and finally retired into a 

 natural or artificial stone ever afterward preserved in the Natchez 

 temple, leaving the government of his people to his descendants, the 

 Sun caste or clan. In this temple a perpetual fire was maintained and 

 preserved by certain guardians, any remissness on whose part was 

 severely punished. There was also preserved here the figure of a rat- 

 tlesnake and a number of small carved images. The southern third of 

 the temple was set off from the rest and was probably that which 

 contained the sacred stone. It is evident that, in spite of its excep- 

 tional sanctity and peculiar accessories, this building was similar to 

 the ossuaries found elsewhere in the Southeast as far as Virginia, and 

 it is not strange to read that it contained a raised platform on which 

 were hampers enclosing the bones of leading members of the Sun caste. 

 Immediately after the funeral ceremonies for the principal Suns, we 

 know that their bodies were buried in or close to the temple, but it is 

 pretty certain that they were exhumed later, the bones separated from 

 the flesh, and placed in the hampers as above indicated. We are told 

 that the great chief and his wife came to this temple every evening 

 and every morning "to worship their idols." Here the first fruits of 

 the harvest are said to have been brought annually. The firewood 

 was hickory with the bark removed except that twigs of a tree which 

 seems to have been the hackberry were added to it. It was piled 

 about a honeylocust. It was natural that lightning should be regarded 

 with great reverence, and that the destruction of the temple by a light- 

 ning bolt should be regarded as a sign of divine wrath. When this 



