S WANTON] INDIAJS'S OP THE SOUTHEASTEEN UNITED SfTATES 819 



it grow long, at least on one side like the Virginia Algonquians. 

 Women used paint as well as the men and in addition blackened their 

 teeth. They manufactured wooden stools and carried about their 

 chiefs and leading men on litters. Government was a theocracy 

 embodying a caste system transmitted after a peculiar pattern. Com- 

 moners seem to have been buried in the earth somewhat after the 

 Chickasaw and Creek manner, but bodies of chiefs and nobles were 

 buried in or near the temple, the bones being later exhumed and placed 

 in hampers in that building. The Natchez temple was quadrangular 

 in pattern with a partition at the southern end containing the tribal 

 palladium, and a perpetual fire in the larger room was tended by a spe- 

 cial group of functionaries. On the roof of the temple were three 

 wooden birds. The burial of a chief or noble was accompanied by a 

 number of human sacrifices, some voluntarily undertaken. Spike- 

 shaped ear ornaments were worn by the women. They obtained salt in 

 trade from tribes farther west. Besides corn they reaped a certain 

 grain which they sowed on sand banks in the Mississippi River. In 

 historic times they had acquired the calumet ceremony. 



The Chitimacha depended largely on a fish diet and also used the 

 flesh of alligators. They roached the hair of their heads, and prac- 

 ticed frontal head deformation. They used nose ornaments and they 

 had a class of undertakers like the "Buzzard Men" of the Choctaw who 

 allowed their fingernails to grow long in the same manner. They made 

 considerable use in their dietary of the seeds of water lilies. They were 

 fine basket makers. There w^as a true caste system, and leadership was 

 dependent on descent. They are said to have used poison to destroy 

 their enemies. The division of labor between the sexes is said to have 

 been particularly favorable to the women. Their burial customs were 

 like those of the Choctaw. This tribe or one nearly related to it seems 

 to have preserved the use of the atlatl into the historic period. They 

 had acquired the calumet ceremony before the French arrived in their 

 country. 



The customs of the Tunica seem to have resembled those of other 

 lower Mississippi tribes. According to one authority, work in the 

 fields fell mainly upon males. Persinmions were especially abundant 

 in their country, and were put up in large quantities by them. They 

 had temples but not as elaborate ceremonies connected with them as the 

 Natchez. So far as we know, they buried their dead in the earth and 

 did not exhume the bodies for reburial. They were particularly 

 addicted to tattooing and the women blackened their teeth. They 

 were skilled in dressing skins and making pottery, and were much 

 engaged in the boiling down and selling of salt. 



All of the western and most of the eastern Caddo lived in grass 

 houses like those of the Wichita, but a few of those on Red River 



