Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/370

 they made war against the Chicasaws, in aid of the French, and that, though they professed to aid the cause of the Natchez, yet that afterwards, through mere jealousy, they had joined with the French against them.

The Choctaws, till very late years, had a practice, not indeed peculiar, of exposing their dead upon scaffolds till such time as the flesh decayed, which was then separated from the bones by a set of old men, who devoted themselves to this custom, and were called "bone-pickers," after which, the bones were interred in some place set apart for the purpose.

This custom unquestionably arose out of a veneration for the deceased, and an attachment to their remains, which, among a wandering and unsettled people, were thus conveniently removed. A circumstance of this kind is related by Charlevoix,[279] where the Indians on removing their village, carried with them also the bones of their dead.