The Natchez not only worshipped the sun, hut kept what they termed the
eternal fire; which last they accomplished by slowly burning a torch made of
three pieces of wood joined at one end.*
Their hereditary usages were very remarkable, and constituted, in fact, a
feudal system of the most exclusive kind. They called their principal chief the
Great Sun, and the nobles and their children were called suns; while all that
portion of the tribe not allied to these dignitaries, were stigmatised by an epithet
equivalent to the English word rabble. Yet what is even more singular, nobility
was derived and transmitted exclusively through the female sex.
The character of these people was more pacific than that of most other
American tribes. They rarely make wars, says Charlevoix, nor place their glory
in destroying their fellow creatures; but, once excited to revenge by repeated
provocation, their resentment is appeased only by the extermination of their
enemies. The fate of the first French colony in their nation is a tragical
illustration of this fact, and may be told in a few words. The French, by
repeated aggressions, aroused the vengeance of a people who had assiduously
cultivated their friendship. A plan was concerted by the Indians for destroying
their enemies in a single night; and with such fidelity was this secret maintained,
that on the eve of St. Andrew, A. D. 1729, they fell upon the hapless colony, and
of seven hundred Europeans, all except a mere handful were massacred without
mercy.
We have only to add the uniform result of such resistance on the part of the
Indians. The French entered the country of the Natchez in great force, and this
injured people, after a valiant struggle, was at last dispersed and almost exterminated
in the year 1730.f
It is a singular circumstance in the character of these people, that they were
in the practice of funeral sacrifices to an extent unknown elsewhere in America
* Charlevoix, Voy. de l’Amerique, Let. XXX.
t The French sold their Natchez'prisoners, including a chief, into slavery in the West India
Islands. Such of the Natchez as escaped the fate of their country, fled up Red River, in Louisiana,
and encamped six miles below the town of Natchitoches. Monsieur St. Dennie, a French, Canadian,
was then Commandant at Natchitoches: he collected what soldiers and militia he had at his disposal,
and these being joined by the Natchitoches Indians, the Natchez were attacked in their camp by the
whole force. The besieged “ defended themselves desperately for six hours, but were at length totally
defeated by St. Dennie, and such of them as were not killed in battle, were driven into the lake, where
the last of them perished, and the Natchez as a nation became extinct.”—Sibley, Message fr om the
President o f the U. S.f 1806, p. 80.
excepting in Peru! My friend Mr. Nuttall has embodied the more striking
features of this usage in the following paragraph. “ When either the male or
female Sun died, all their allouez, or intimate attendants, devoted themselves to
death, under a persuasion that their presence would be necessary to maintain the
dignity of their chief in the future world. The wives and husbands of these
chiefs were likewise immolated for the same purpose, and considered it the most
honorable and desirable of deaths. More than a hundred victims were sometimes
sacrificed to the manes of the Great Chief. The same horrible ceremonies, in a
more limited degree, were also exercised at the death of the lesser chiefs.
“ At the death of one of their female chiefs, Charlevoix relates, that her
husband not being noble, was, according to their custom, strangled by the hands of
his own son. Soon after, the two deceased being laid out in state, were
surrounded by the dead bodies of twelve infants, strangled by order of the eldest
daughter of the late female chief, and who had now succeeded to her dignity.
Fourteen other individuals, were also prepared to die, and accompany the deceased.
On the day of interment as the procession advanced, the fathers and mothers who
had sacrificed their children, preceding the bier, threw the bodies on the ground
at different distances, in order that they might be trampled upon by the bearers
of the dead. The corpse arriving in the temple where it was to be interred, the
fourteen victims now prepared themselves for death by swallowing pills of
tobacco and water, and were then strangled by the relations of the deceased, and
their bodies cast into the common grave and covered writh earth.”*
Among other singular customs of the Natchez, was that of distorting the
head by compression. Du Pratz mentions, the women place their newborn
infant in a cradle which is about two feet and a half long, nine inches broad, and
six inches deep, stuffed beneath with a kind of mattrass, with the plant called
Spanish beard. “ The infant is laid on its back in the cradle, and fastened to it by
the shoulders, the arms, the legs, the thighs and the hips; and over its forehead
are laid two bands of deer-skin, which keep its head to the cushion, and render
that part f l at and he adds, that they never place their children on their feet
until they are a year old.f
During the invasion of Florida, by Ferdinand de Soto, the Spaniards met
with some Indians whose heads were moulded precisely into the form above
described. “ Their heads are incredibly long,” (high) observes the historian, “ and
* Travels in Arkansas, p. 271.--Charlevoix, Voy. de l’Amerique, Let. XXX.
t Hist, of Louisiana, p. 323.