SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 809 



it is not reported from the lower Mississippi. Algonquian and Siouan 

 women are said to have made no use of paint while only Creek women 

 of a particular class employed it, but it was resorted to constantly by 

 the Indian women in Florida, along the lower Mississippi, and among 

 the Caddo. Only on the lower Mississippi do we hear of Indian women 

 blackening their teeth. The Buzzard Men of the Choctaw and pre- 

 sumably Chitimacha, and all of the Indians of Florida let their finger- 

 nails grow long; those of North Carolina at least did not. Frontal 

 head deformation was common on the lower course of the Mississippi, 

 among the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Waxhaw, and probably the Ca- 

 tawba, and was resorted to by some Caddo as late as the time of De 

 Soto. There seems to be no record of the chunkey game in Virginia 

 among the Virginia Siouans or in Florida, but the omission means 

 little. In historic times labrets are reported only on the Texas coast, 

 but they were found at Key Marco by Cushing. Wooden stools were 

 also found at Key Marco and they are reported in historic times from 

 the Mobile, Chickasaw, and Natchez tribes. Stone mortars seem to 

 have been used in making flour in the central section of the Southeast 

 in prehistoric times, but the tribes found in occupancy all used mortars 

 of wood. If Strachey is correct in stating that these were made by the 

 women, that would register as a Virginia peculiarity. The kunti mor- 

 tars were made by excavating hollows in the sides of fallen trees, and 

 I was told by a Choctaw that this was the only way any were made 

 before axes were introduced, but this is certainly erroneous. In 

 Virginia and the Carolinas in very early times there was in use a 

 club with flints fixed into the side making something like a sword. 

 The black locust was the principal wood used for bows east of the 

 Mississippi and the Osage orange the principal one west of it. In 

 1541 the Tula, a Caddo tribe, were using lances, though they seem 

 to have been unknown to the Indians farther east. At the same time 

 we learn that spear throwers had survived at the mouth of the Mis- 

 sissippi, and Cushing found an abundance of them at Key Marco, 

 though these may or may not have been of ancient date. In 

 1528, however, Narvaez and his companions were attacked near 

 Pensacola by Indians with "darts" which may have been 

 thrown from atlatls, since they had no bows and arrows. Here also 

 is almost the only reference to a sling in the Southeast. The north- 

 eastern Algonquians had shields made of bark ; elsewhere they were of 

 cane or bison hide. Dugouts were used on the coast and the larger 

 rivers, and bark canoes inland, utility evidently determining distribu- 

 tion. The litters in which chiefs and other persons of eminence were 

 borne about in most of these tribes seem to have given way to the 

 shoulders of willing or appointed subjects among the Caddo and to 

 have been absent in Virginia. In the last-mentioned region mats were 



