[248] Purchas’s Pilgrims, vol. IV. p. 1546.—Nuttall.

[249] This Peruvian title for chieftain is employed throughout the narrative, by Garcilasso de la Vega, the author of the history, and himself a descendant of the Incas, who chose to follow the fortunes of Soto, one of the conquerors of his country.—Nuttall.

[250] Called Prunes by the Spaniards.—Nuttall.

[251] The same apparently with Kaskaskia, spelled Kaskasquia by Father Charlevoix, and Caskaquia by Du Pratz. This band, as well as the Kahoquias, Tamaroas, Peorias, and Pimeteois, formed part of the Illinois nation, now nearly all extinct, though they could once enumerate as many as twenty thousand souls. They were found inhabiting the rivers which still retain their name, and have fallen before the Iroquois, and the Chicasa nations, with whom they waged war. Their name of Illinois, or Illinese of La Hontan, so much like Leni-Lenape, or that of the Delawares, and signifying, in common with that appellation, the original or genuine men, besides the tradition of their having come in company with the Miamies from the borders of Hudson’s bay or the North Pacific, and their speaking nearly the same language, as related by Charlevoix,⁠[A] appear as so many proofs of the common origin of these two people. It is also related by the same author (before their arrival in the country, which they so extensively occupied in the time of Soto’s incursion, and in which they lived till the period of their approaching extinction), they had settled along the borders of the river des Moins, or Moingona, of the Mississippi, which gave name to one of their tribes. The friendship which they cultivated, about a century ago, with the Osages, and the Arkansas, who are the same people, and some incidental resemblances between them, lead us to believe them also commonly related by language and descent.—Nuttall.

[252] These “mantels,” as they are called by Purchas, were fabricated from coarse threads of the bark of trees and nettles.—Nuttall.

[253] Probably Pecans (Carya olivœformis).—Nuttall.

[254] Prunus chicasa?—Nuttall.

[254A] P. hiemalis.—Nuttall.

[255] Of this singular fish, I received circumstantial accounts at the Post of Arkansa. It also exists in the Ohio, and is the Platyrostra edentula of Lesueur, described in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. i. part 2, pp. 227, 228, and 229, and allied to the Polyodon of Lacepède. The plain description of this very local and curious animal, affords additional evidence, if it were necessary, of the truth of the relations of Garcilassa de la Vega, notwithstanding the scepticism of some of the later French writers.—Nuttall.

[256] This inundated country appears to be the Great Swamp, which commences below Cape Girardeau, said to be 60 miles long.—Nuttall.

[257] Called ox-hides—Nuttall.

[258] This mountainous country and province of Coligoa, was, in all probability, situated towards the sources of the St. Francis, or the hills of White river.—Nuttall.

[259] The same people with the Tunicas, called also Tonicas, by Charlevoix and Du Pratz.—Nuttall.

[260] These are evidently the salt waters of the Washita.—Nuttall.

[261] Probably the same as the Quapaws.—Nuttall.

[262] From the geographical situation, this aboriginal province must have been that of the Natchez.—Nuttall.

[263] The Hurons also, according to the same author, pretended that their hereditary chiefs were descended from the sun, and continued the descent by the females in the same manner.—Nuttall.

[264] In a speech made to governor Clinton, in 1788, by Domine Peter, a native orator, on the part of the Senecas and Cayugas, the authority of the female chieftains is acknowledged, by the speaker, and thus apologized. “Our ancestors considered it a great offence to reject the counsels of their women, particularly (that) of the female governesses (or chieftains). They were esteemed the mistresses of the soil (as they solely attended to the labours of agriculture). Who, said they, bring us into being? Who cultivate our lands, kindle our fires (or administer food to the calls of hunger), but our women? &c.” Governor Clinton’s Discourse, December, 1811, App. p. 80.

As the mothers of the slain in battle, the women had the controul of prisoners, either to adopt or destroy them at will, and their interposition to procure peace, and stay hostilities, was universally acknowledged. We have a remarkable example of this in the history of the Delawares, who, at the instigation of the Iroquois, became a nation of mediators, and were thus said to have assumed one of the distinguishing functions of the female sex, and were, consequently, debarred from active war and masculine distinction. See Heckewelder’s History of the Delawares, in the report of the Historical Committee of the American Philosophical Society.—Nuttall.

[265] This, which Sir William Jones considered as the ritual of the Tartars, is also employed by the Sioux or Naudowessies, as I have repeatedly witnessed.

According to the observations of Mr. Wm. Bartram, the Creeks likewise practised the same ceremony.

An invocation not very dissimilar to this sacred ceremony, is that of Agamemnon in the Iliad; thus translated by Pope:

According to Humboldt, in his Monumens de l’Amérique, vol. ii. pp. 54 and 55, the Mexican cycle of 52 years was divided into four indictions of 13 years, in reference to the four seasons of the year, the four elements, and the cardinal points. The most ancient division of the zodiac, according to Albategnius,⁠[B] is that into four parts. “These four signs,” he adds, “of the equinoxes and the solstices, chosen from a series of 20 signs” (the number of days in the Mexican month), “recall to mind the four royal stars, Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares, and Fomahault, celebrated in all Asia, and presiding over the seasons.⁠[C] In the new continent, the indictions of the cycle of 52 years, formed, as we would say, the four seasons of the grand year, and the Mexican astrologers were pleased to see presiding over each period of 13 years one of the four equinoctial or solstitial signs.”—NUTTALL.

[266] The following example of the noble and common language of the Natchez, is given by Du Pratz.⁠[D] In calling one of the common people he would say, aquenan, that is, “hark ye;” if to a sun or one of the nobles, the address would be magani, which also signifies the same. To one of the common people, calling at his house, he would say, tachte-cabanacte, “are you there,” or “I am glad to see you.” To a sun the same thing is expressed by the word apapegouaiché. Again, according to their custom, I say to one of the common people, petchi, “sit you down;” but to a sun, caham. In other respects the language is the same; as the difference of expression seems only to take place in matters relating to the persons of the suns and nobles, to distinguish them from the people.—Nuttall.

[267] Among the Mexicans, prisoners, rather than domestics and attendants, were devoted to death at the obsequies of the great, as victims to that spirit of revenge so deeply cherished by savage or barbarous nations. So even Achilles, lamenting over the body of Patroclus, says,

[268] Du Pratz Hist. Louisian. p. 313 (Ed. Lond.).—Nuttall.

[269] The great Deity of the savages of the river Bourbon, and the river St. Therese, Hudson’s Bay, is the sun. When they deliberate on any important affair, they make him, as it were, smoke. They assemble at day-break in a cabin of one of their chiefs, who, after having lighted his pipe, presents it three times to the rising sun; then he guides it with both hands from the east to the west, praying the sun to favour the nation. This being done, all the assembly smoke in the same pipe. Charlevoix, Hist. Journ. p. 108 (Ed. Lond.). The Sioux also practise the same rites.

Gookin, in 1674, says, “Some, for their God, adore the sun; others the moon; some the earth, others the fire, and like vanities. Yet, generally, they acknowledge one great supreme doer of good; and him they call Woonand or Mannitt; another, that is, the great doer of evil or mischief; and him they call Mattand, which is the Devil, &c.” Compare this relation with the invocation of Agamemnon, already quoted, from which it scarcely differs in any particular.

Traces of the adoration of the sun are discoverable also in Colden’s History of the Five Nations, not only among the Iroquois, but also with the neighbouring nations: thus among the attestations to a treaty of peace made with the Iroquois, by a band of the Utawas, we find the following. “Let the sun, as long as he shall endure, always shine upon us in friendship.” With which apostrophe was delivered a figure of the sun, sculptured of red marble.⁠[E] A similar figure was again presented to the Five Nations by the Utawas and a branch of the Hurons (called Dionondadies) jointly, in another treaty concluded between them.[F]

At a treaty in which general Harrison assisted, towards the commencement of the last war, the council-house being crowded, a chief arriving late was suffered to stand some time unheeded, until the general sent him a chair, as from his father. He refused the offer, saying, probably in allusion to their ancient belief, “The sun is my father, the earth my mother, and my seat is the ground.”

The sacred, or eternal, fire is also described in the following incidental remark, made by a chief speaker of the Five Nations: “Before the Christians arrived amongst us, the general council of the Five Nations was held at Onondago, where there has, from the beginning (or from the remotest time) been kept a fire continually burning, made of two great logs whose flame was never extinguished.”⁠[G]—Nuttall.

[270] Charlevoix, Hist. Journ. p. 249. (Ed. Lond.).—Nuttall.

[271] In ancient times, before the moon accompanied the earth (says the mythology of the Muyscas or Mozcas Indians), the inhabitants of the plain of Bogota lived like barbarians, naked, without agriculture, without laws, and without worship. Suddenly there appeared among them an aged man, who came from the plains east of the Cordillera of Chingasa: he seemed to be of a different race from that of the indigenes, for he had a long and tufted beard. He was known by three different names; under that of Bochica, Nemquetheba, and Zuhè. This aged person, after the manner of Manco-Capac, taught men to clothe themselves, to construct dwellings, to cultivate the earth, and to unite in society. He brought with him a woman, to whom tradition gave also the three names of Chia, Yubecayguaya, and Haythaca. This female was of an uncommon beauty, but exceedingly wicked, counteracting her husband in every thing which he undertook for the good of men. By her magic art she swelled the river Funzha to such a degree, that the water inundated the whole valley of Bogota. This deluge destroyed the greatest part of the inhabitants, a few only escaping upon the summits of the neighbouring mountains. The old man, irritated, drove the beautiful Haythaca from the earth; she then became the moon, which, from that period, commenced to enlighten our planet during the night. Afterwards Bochica, son of the sun, taking pity on the men who were dispersed upon the mountains, broke, with his powerful hand, the rocks which close the valley on the side of Canaos and Tequendama. By this opening he carried off the water of the lake of Funzha, reunited again the people of the valley of Bogota, constructed towns, introduced the worship of the sun, nominated two chiefs, between whom he divided the ecclesiastic and secular power, and then retired, under the name of Idacanzas, into the sacred valley of Iraca, near to Tanja, where he devoted himself to exercises of the most austere penance, for the space of two thousand years. Humboldt’s Vues des Cordillères, et Monumens des Peuples indigènes de l’Amérique. Vol. I. pp. 87, 88. (Ed. Octavo.).

The Jouskeka, who destroyed his brother, and the Atahentsic of the Hurons, also, in some measure, resemble the Cihuacohuatl or woman of the serpent, adored by the Mexicans, and figured in their hieroglyphic paintings. This goddess was regarded as the mother of the human race, and in the painting alluded to, published by Humboldt, she is accompanied familiarly by a serpent, and in the same symbolical sketch there are two smaller figures engaged in combat, as if to designate the Cain and Abel of the Hebrews, and which were considered in Mexico as the children of the female deess. Humboldt, vol I. pp. 235, 236.—Nuttall.

[272] Charlevoix, p. 133.—Nuttall.

[273] They present robes of the bison painted with the rays of the sun, exposing them upon poles, set up in the prairies.—Nuttall.

[274] When La Salle was among the Natchez, in 1683, he saw a party of that people, who had been on an expedition against the Iroquois. Tonti’s account of La Salle’s Expedition (Ed. Lond.), p. 112.—Nuttall.

[275] This method of recording the lapse of time was also practised by the Chicasas and Muskogolgees, according to the relation of Adair.—Nuttall.

[276] Mr. Brackenridge adds, that, after the defeat by Perire, about 200 of the Natchez fortified themselves some distance up Red river, but were attacked and destroyed by St. Dennis. Hist. Louisiana, p. 44.—Nuttall.

[277] Charlevoix’s Hist. Journ. p. 323.—Nuttall.

[278] Du Pratz’s Hist. Louisiana, p. 318.—Nuttall.

[279] Historical Journal, p. 334. (Ed. Lond.).—Nuttall.