[71]. See the Cherokees’ reception of Sir Alexander Cuming, described by Cuming: Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 135 et seq.
[72]. See Jones, Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 370, 500, 505, 514, 521; Harrington, Cherokee Remains on Upper Tennessee, 77, 82, 136, 286; and for gems found in the Cherokee Country, Williams, Memoirs of Timberlake, 73.
[73]. The literature on the American Indians is fully corroborative.
[74]. A gourd or calabash set with gems was a mark of sacerdotal dignity among the ancients of Mexico. (Kingsborough.)
[75]. The ancients of Mexico also had a superstitious regard for the eagle, whose effigy they emblazoned on their shields. (Lord Kingsborough.)
[76]. Natchez Indians, as refugees among the Chickasaws after the wars with the French.
[77]. There was a similar superstition as to the power of witches—that they could assume animal forms. Kingsborough, Antiquities of Mexico, VI, 121. Supplementing incantations, the Indians resorted to the regimen of abstinence, but also to herbs. Among these: lobelia, sassafras, white nettle, swamp-lily, may-apple, ginseng, white-root, wild senna, etc. The best list and account is by Mooney, Sacred Formulas, 322 et seq. See others mentioned by Adair, on p. 388 post.
[78]. The Jews waited seven months. (Kingsborough.)
[79]. For illustrations of scaffolds, Hodge, Handbook, I, 946.
[80]. To same effect: Jones, Antiquities of Southern Indians, 202, citing Brickell’s Natural History of North Carolina, 380; and see Swanton, Lower Tribes, 365. Starr, a Cherokee historian, says that these aboriginal burial customs were abandoned for those of the white race, by 1800. Early History of the Cherokees, 20.