Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/149

 SECT. III.] SOUTHERN INDIANS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 113 The aristocratical feature of the institution of clans ap- pears to have been general. Some superiority is everywhere ascribed to one of them : — to the Unamis among the Dela- wares ; to the Wase-ishta among the Omahaws ; to the Bear tribe among the Hurons and Five Nations. Charlevoix says, that when the Mohawks put to death Father Iogues, it was the work of the Bear clan alone, and notwithstanding all the efforts of those of the Wolf and of the Turtle to save him.* But it is among the Natches alone that we find, connected together, a highly privileged class, a despotic government, and something like a regular form of religious worship. The Natches occupied a territory of moderate extent on the Mississippi, and lived in three villages near the site of the town which has preserved their name. The number of their warriors, which was estimated at twelve hundred, appears from the details of their war with the French to have been rather overrated. They were divided into four classes or clans, on the same principle and under the same regulations as those of the other southern Indian tribes. They worshipped the sun, from whom the sovereign and the privileged class pretended to be descend- ed ; and they preserved a perpetual sacred fire in an edifice appropriated to that purpose. The hereditary dignity of Chief or Great Sun descended as usual by the female line;f and he as well as all the other members of his clan, whether male or female, could marry only persons of an inferior clan. Hence the barbarous custom of sacrificing at their funerals the consorts of the Great Sun and of his mother. Her influence was pow- erful, and his authority apparently despotic, though checked by her and by some select counsellors of his own clan. Charlevoix says, that most of the nations of Louisiana had a perpetual fire in their temples. He and Du Pratz describe as eyewitnesses the temple and sacred fire of the Natches. Ton- ti saw the temple of the Taensas, then living on the west side of the Mississippi, and which is described in his relation with its usual exaggeration. The worship of the sun and fire by He had with difficulty been saved three years before by the good offices of the Dutch commanding officer at Fort Orange. f Amongst the Hurons the dignity of chief is hereditary through the female line. They believe him to have issued from the sun. Char- levoix, Vol. HI. VOL. II. 15
 * Vol. I. Year 1646. Father Iogues was the victim of his zeal.