214 THE GEORGE' CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



until it was found to be great mountains of water rolling on, which destroyed them 

 all except a few families, who had expected it and built a great raft, on which they 

 were saved." % 



Future state. — " Our people all believe that the spirit lives in a future state ; that it 

 has a great distance to travel after death towards the west ; that it has to cross a 

 dreadful, deep, and rapid stream, which is hemmed in on both sides by high and rugged 

 hills ; over this stream, from hill to hill, there lies a long and slippery pine log, with 

 the bark peeled off, over which the dead have to pass to the delightful hunting- 

 grounds. On the other side of the stream there are six persons of the good hunting- 

 grounds, with rocks in their hands, which they throw at them all when they are on 

 the middle of the log. The good walk on safely to the good hunting-grounds, where 

 there is one continual day ; where the trees are always green ; where the sky has no 

 clouds ; where there are continual fine and cooling breezes ; where there is one con- 

 tinual scene of feasting, dancing, and rejoicing; where there is no^pain or trouble, 

 and people never grow old, but forever live young and enjoy the youthful pleasures. 



" The wicked see the stones coming, and try to dodge, by which they fall from the 

 log, and go down thousands of feet to the water, which is dashing over the rocks, and 

 is stinking with dead fish and animals, where they are carried around and brought 

 continually back to the same place in whirlpools ; where the trees are all dead, and 

 the waters full of toads and lizards and snakes ; where the dead are always hungry, 

 and have nothing to eat, are always sick, and never die ; where the sun never shines, 

 and where the wicked are continually climbing up by thousands on the sides of a high 

 rock, from which they can overlook the beautiful country of the good hunting-grounds, 

 the place of the happy, but never can reach it." 



Origin of the Crawfish band. — "Our people have amongst them a band which is called 

 the Craw-fish band. They formerly, but at a very remote period, lived under ground, 

 and used to come out of the mud; they were a species of craw-fish, and they went on 

 their hands and feet, and lived in a large cave, deep under ground, where there was 

 no light for several miles. They spoke no language at all, nor could they understand 

 any. The entrance to their cave was through the mud, and they used to run down 

 through that and into their cave, and thus the Choctaws were for a long time unable 

 to molest them. The Choctaws used to lay in wait for them to come out into the 

 sun, where they would try to talk to them and cultivate an acquaintance. 



" One day a parcel of them were run upon so suddenly by the Choctaws that they 

 had no time to go through the mud into their cave, but were driven into it by another 

 entrance which they had through the rocks. The Choctaws then tried a long time 

 to smoke them out, and at last succeeded. They treated them kindly, taught them 

 the Choctaw language, taught them to walk on two legs, made them cut off their toe 

 nails, and pluck the hair from their bodies, after which they adopted them into their 

 nation, and the remainder of them are living under ground to this day." 



MUSKOGEE— CHOCTAWS. 



The Choctaws, or Chahtas, at the time of De Soto's visit in 1540, were living south 

 of the Chickasaws and west of the Creeks. Unlike the surrounding tribes, they 

 were peaceably disposed, and a nation of farmers, and much farther advanced in 

 civilization than any of their neighbors. Coming in contact with the French, Spanish, 

 English, and Americans, they have never been at war with any of them. Com- 

 menced moving west of the Mississippi in 1801, and by 1830 had exchanged all their 

 lands for other in the Indian Territory. By 1861 had advanced far in civilization, 

 numbering with the Chickasaws 25,000 with 5,000 slaves. In the civil war they joined 

 first the South and then the North, losing a great deal in property and a reduction to 

 17,000 of their population. They now number 16,000, of whom two-thirds are of 

 mixed blood. Are governed by a written constitution, elect their chief every four 

 years, have a council consisting of forty members, and a judiciary, and trial by 

 jury.— W. IT. Jackson, 1877. 



