SOUTH' AMERICA, 
S l 5 
ill over with earth, which raifes a conical hill or 
’mount. Then they return to town in order of 
foie mn proceffion, concluding the day with a 
feftival, which is called the feafl of the dead. 
The Chaftaws are called by the traders flats, 
or flat-heads, all the males having the fore and 
hind part of their fkulls artificially flattened, or 
compreffed ; which is effected after the following 
manner. As foon as the child is born, the nurfe 
provides a cradle or wooden cafe, hollowed and 
fafiiioned, to receive the infant, lying proftrate on 
its back, that part of the cafe where the head re- 
poles, being fafiiioned like a brick mould. In 
this portable machine the little boy is fixed, a bag 
of fand being laid on his forehead, which by con- 
tinual gentle compreffion, gives the head home- 
what the form of a brick from the temples up- 
wards ; and by thefe means they have high and 
lofty foreheads, doping off backwards'. Thefe 
men are not fo neat in the trim of their heads, as 
the Mufcogulges are, and they are remarkably 
ilovenly and negligent in every part of their 
drefs ; but otherwife they are faid to be inge- 
nious, fenfible and virtuous men ; bold and in- 
trepid, yet quiet and peaceable, and are acknow- 
ledged by the Creeks to be brave. 
They are fuppofed to be mod: ingenious and 
induflrious hufbandmen, having large planta- 
tions, or country farms, where they employ much 
of their time in agricultural improvements, after 
the manner of the white people ; by which means 
their territories are more generally cultivated, 
and better inhabited, than any other Indian re- 
public that we know of. The number of their 
inhabitants is faid greatly to exceed the whole 
Mufcogulge confederacy, although their terri- 
L 1 % ' tories 
