NORTH AMERICA# 
5*5 
ail over with earth, which raifes a conical hill or 
mount. Then they return to town in order of fo- 
lemn proceffion, concluding the day with a feftivaj> 
which is called the feaft of the dead. 
The Chadtaws are called by the traders flats, or 
flat-heads, all the males having the fore and hind 
part of their fkulls artificially flattened, or com- 
pr fled * which is effedced after the following man- 
ner. As foon as the child is born, the nurfe pro- 
vides a cradle or wooden cafe, hollowed and fa- 
fliioned, to receive the infant, lying proftrate on its 
back, that part of die cafe where the head repoles, 
being fafliioned like a brick mould. In this porta- 
ble machine the little boy is fixed, a bag of fand be- 
ing laid on his forehead, which by continual gen- 
tle compreflion, gives the head fomewhat the form 
of a brick from the temples upwards ; and by thefe 
means they have high and lofty foreheads, Hoping 
off backwards. Thefe men are not fo neat in the 
trim of their heads, as the Mufcogulges are, and 
they are remarkably flovenly and negligent in every 
part of their drefs s but otherwife they are faid to be 
ingenious, fenflble, 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 in- 
duftrious hufbandmen, having large plantations, or 
country farms, where they employ much of their 
time in agricultural improvements, after the manner 
of the white people ; by which means their territo- 
ries are more generally cultivated, and better inha- 
bited, than any other Indian republic that we know 
of. The number of their inhabitants is faid greatly 
to exceed the whole Mufcogulge confederacy, al- 
though their territories are not a fourth part as ex- 
L 1 2 tenfive* 
