Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/136

 100 A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [iNTROD. recollection of a former migration, and, like the Muskhogees, say that they came from under the ground.* The Choctaws, properly Chahtas, called also "Flat Heads/' on account of the practice, common to several other tribes, of flattening the head in infancy by artificial means, are a much more numerous but less warlike people. Adair, whose estimate of the character of the Indians depends on their political con- nexions with the English or French, represents the Choctaws as the most worthless of any of the southern tribes. The early French writers complain of their fickleness, and that they could not place confidence in their fidelity. According to Bernard Romans, they were farther advanced in civilization than any of their neighbours, less cruel towards their prisoners, and applying more to agriculture than to the chase. " The Choctaws may more properly be called a nation of farmers than any savages I have met with." " They help their wives in the labor of the fields and many other works." " Their way of life in general may be called industrious ; they will do what no other uncompelled savage will do, that is, work in the field to raise grain." f It is certain that the Europeans have no right to complain of them. They have had successively for neigh- bours the French, the Spanish, the English, and the Americans ; and they have never been at war with any of them. Their principal wars have been with the Creeks, always defensive and not very sanguinary. In a conflict of six years (1765- 1771), they lost about three hundred people.f B. Romans estimated their warriors, in 1772, at less than three thousand, which does not differ materially from Adair's account. Ac- cording to the enumeration by the War Department, they now amount to eighteen thousand five hundred souls. They have agreed to take lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for their ancient territory ; and about fifteen thousand have already removed to that new country. The Choctaw or Chicasa language is by Du Pratz called the Molilian, a common language (langue vulgaire) ; and the intercourse of the French with other tribes was generally carried on by the means of Choctaw interpreters. A grammar of the language has been prepared by our missionaries and will lsiane) explains the tradition by supposing that they invaded the country in great numbers. f B, Romans, Nat. Hist. Florida. (New York, 1776.) pp. 71, 83. J Ibid,
 * Bernard Romans and Du Pratz. The latter writer (Hist, de Lour