As the children grow up, the fathers and mothers take care each to accustom those of their own sex to the labours and exercises suited to them, and they have no great trouble to keep them employed; but it must be confessed that the girls and the women work more than the men and the boys. These last go a hunting and fishing, cut the wood, the smallest bits of which are carried home by the women; they clear the fields for corn, and hoe it; and on days when they cannot go abroad they amuse themselves with making, after their fashion, pickaxes, oars, paddles, and other instruments, which once made last a long while. The women on the other hand have their children to bring up, have to pound the maiz for the subsistence of the family, have to keep up the fire, and to make a great many utensils, which require a good deal of work, and last but a short time, such as their earthen ware, their matts, their clothes, and a thousand other things of that kind.
When the children are about ten or twelve years of age they accustom them by degrees to carry small loads, which they increase with their years. The boys are from time to time exercised in running; but they never suffer them to exhaust themselves by the length of the race, lest they should overheat themselves. The more nimble at that exercise sometimes sportfully challenges those who are more slow and heavy; but the old man who presides hinders the raillery from being carried to any excess, carefully avoiding all subjects of quarrel and dispute, on which account doubtless it is that they will never suffer them to wrestle.
Both boys and girls are early accustomed to bathe every morning, in order to strengthen the nerves, and harden them against cold and fatigue, and likewise to teach them to swim, that they may avoid or pursue an enemy, even across a river. The boys and girls, from the time they are three years of age, are called out every morning by an old man, to go to the river; and here is some more employment for the mothers who accompany them thither to teach them to swim. Those who can swim tolerably well, make a great noise in winter by beating the water in order to frighten away the crocodiles, and keep themselves warm.
The reader will have observed that most of the labour and fatigue falls to the share of the women; but I can declare that I never heard them complain of their fatigues, unless of the trouble their children gave them, which complaint arose as much from maternal affection, as from any attention that the children required. The girls from their infancy have it instilled into them, that if they are sluttish or unhandy they will have none but a dull aukward fellow for their husband; I observed in all the nations I visited, that this threatening was never lost upon the young girls.
I would not have it thought however, that the young men are altogether idle. Their occupations indeed are not of such a long continuance; but they are much more laborious. As the men have occasion for more strength, reason requires that they should not exhaust themselves in their youth; but at the same time they are not exempted from those exercises that fit them for war and hunting. The children are educated without blows; and the body is left at full liberty to grow, and to form and strengthen itself with their years. The youths accompany the men in hunting, in order to learn the wiles and tricks necessary to be practised in the field, and accustom themselves to suffering and patience. When they are full grown men, they dress the field or waste land, and prepare it to receive the seed; they go to war or hunting, dress the skins, cut the wood, make their bows and arrows, and assist each other in building their huts.
They have still I allow a great deal of more spare time than the women; but this is not all thrown away. As these people have not the assistance of writing, they are obliged to have recourse to tradition, in order to preserve the remembrance of any remarkable transactions; and this tradition cannot be learned but by frequent repetitions, consequently many of the youths are often employed in hearing the old men narrate the history of their ancestors, which is thus transmitted from generation to generation. In order to preserve their traditions pure and uncorrupt, they are careful not to deliver them indifferently to all their young people, but teach them only to those young men of whom they have the best opinion.
[SECTION II.]
Of the language, government, religion, ceremonies, and feasts of the natives.
During my residence among the Natchez I contracted an intimate friendship, not only with the chiefs or guardians of the temple, but with the Great Sun, or the sovereign of the nation, and his brother the Stung Serpent, the chief of the warriors; and by my great intimacy with them, and the respect I acquired among the people, I easily learned the peculiar language of the nation.
This language is easy in the pronunciation, and expressive in the terms. The natives, like the Orientals, speak much in a figurative stile, the Natchez in particular more than any other people of Louisiana. They have two languages, that of the nobles and that of the people, and both are very copious. I will give two or three examples to shew the difference of these two languages. When I call one of the common people, I say to him aquenan, that is, hark ye: if, on the other hand, I want to speak to a Sun, or one of their nobles, I say to him, magani, which signifies, hark ye. If one of the common people call at my house, I say to him, tachte-cabanacte, are you there, or I am glad to see you, which is equivalent to our goodmorrow. I express the same thing to a Sun by the word apapegouaiché. Again, according to their custom, I say to one of the common people, petchi, sit you down; but to a Sun, when I desire him to sit down, I say, caham. The two languages are nearly the same in all other respects; for the difference of expression seems only to take place in matters relating to the persons of the Suns and nobles, in distinction from those of the people.