780 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOOY [Bull. 137 



happened to the temple of the Taensa, whose customs were almost 

 identical with those of the Natchez, five women threw their infants into 

 the flames to placate the deity. One who had been struck by lightning 

 and had recovered was thought able to cure any disease. We have 

 only a slender knowledge of the other religious beliefs and customs of 

 the Natchez tribe. We are told that they threw bits of bread to the 

 four cardinal points before eating, that they fasted, and had legends 

 regarding a deluge and regarding the way in which the first fire had 

 been obtained. It is probable that the development of the state cult 

 had reduced in some measure the importance of private manipulators 

 of the supernatural, but they existed. We are told that they obtained 

 their power by isolation in a cabin, fasting, invocations to the spirits, 

 a constant noise made with a gourd rattle, and bodily contortions. 

 There were also weather controllers, who made it fair or brought on 

 rain through their incantations accompanied by symbolic acts. Belief 

 in personal immortality is evident both from the direct statements of 

 early writers and from the mortuary rites, and two of our informants 

 state that the good and the evil suffered different fates, though the 

 good appear to have been those who observed the national customs and 

 laws, and the bad those who violated them (Swanton, 1911, pp. 158- 

 180). Du Pratz has attempted to give us an idea of the common 

 Natchez dance without too much success (pi. 105) . 



The Taensa temple differed in some interesting particulars from that 

 of the Natchez but there was little distinction in the cult taken as a 

 whole, so far as we can discover (Swanton, 1911, pp. 259-269). Most 

 of the other tribes along the lower Mississippi had temples, but they 

 were generally smaller and the cults connected with them were evi- 

 dently more attenuated. In the time of De Soto it appears that the 

 Natchez culture, or cultures similar to it, were more widely distributed. 

 A splendid picture of the Acolapissa temple has been preserved to us 

 by De Batz, a French architect or engineer, who informs us that cere- 

 monies were performed before certain images kept within (Bushnell, 

 1927, pp. 3-4, pi. 1 [pi. 62 herein]). The Tunica temple in their old 

 homes on the Yazoo was on a mound like that of the Natchez and was 

 visited by a war party, just before setting out and immediately after 

 their return, but the Tunica performed fewer ceremonies about it than 

 did the Natchez or Taensa around their own. We know that earthen 

 figures were kept in the temple, however, and La Harpe says "their 

 household gods are a frog and a figure of a woman which they worship, 

 thinking that they represent the sun" (Margry, 1875-1886, vol. 6, p. 247 ; 

 Swanton, 1911, p. 318; see Haas, 1942). The association of the sun and 

 frog reminds us of the big frog which the Cherokee believed was trying 

 to swallow the solar orb when an eclipse occurred. Gravier states that : 



they acknowledge nine gods — the sun, thunder, fire, the god of the east, south, 

 north, and west, of heaven and of earth. In each cabin there is a great post 



