The husband wears a tuft of feathers fastened to his hair, which is in the form of a cue, and hangs over his left ear, to which is fastened a sprig of oak with the leaves on, and in his left hand he bears a bow and arrows. The young wife bears in her left hand a small branch of laurel, and in her right a stalk of maiz, which was delivered to her by her mother at the time she received the present from her husband. This stalk she presents to her husband, who takes it from her with his right hand, and says, "I am your husband;" she answers, and "I am your wife." They then shake hands reciprocally with each other's relations; after which he leads her towards the bed, and says, "There is our bed, keep it tight;" which is as much as to say, do not defile the nuptial bed.
The marriage ceremony being thus concluded, the bridegroom and the bride, with their friends, sit down to a repast, and in the evening they begin their dances, which continue often till day-light.
The nation of the Natchez is composed of nobility and common people. The common people are named in their language Miche-Miche-Quipy, that is, Stinkards; a name however which gives them great offense, and which it is proper to avoid pronouncing before them, as it would not fail to put them into a very bad humour. The common people are to the last degree submissive to the nobility, who are divided into Suns, nobles, and men of rank.
The Suns are the descendants of the man and woman who pretended to have come down from the sun. Among the other laws they gave to the Natchez, they ordained that their race should always be distinguished from the bulk of the nation, and that none of them should ever be put to death upon any account. They established likewise another usage which is found among no other people, except a nation of Scythians mentioned by Herodotus. They ordained that nobility should only be transmitted by the women. Their male and female children were equally named Suns, and regarded as such, but with this difference, that the males enjoyed this privilege only in their own person, and during their own lives. Their children had only the title of nobles, and the male children of those nobles were only men of rank. Those men of rank, however, if they distinguished themselves by their war-like exploits, might raise themselves again to the rank of nobles; but their children became only men of rank, and the children of those men of rank, as well as of the others, were confounded with the common people, and classed among the Stinkards. Thus as these people are very long-lived, and frequently see the fourth generation, it often happens that a Sun sees some of his posterity among the Stinkards; but they are at great pains to conceal this degradation of their race, especially from strangers, and almost totally disown those great-grand children; for when they speak of them they only say, they are dear to them. It is otherwise with the female posterity of the Suns, for they continue through all generations to enjoy their rank. The descendants of the Suns being pretty numerous, it might be expected that those who are out of the prohibited degrees might intermarry, rather than ally with the Stinkards; but a most barbarous custom obliges them to their mis-alliances. When any of the Suns, either male or female, die, their law ordains that the husband or wife of the Sun shall be put to death on the day of the interment of the deceased: now as another law prohibits the issue of the Suns from being put to death, it is therefore impossible for the descendants of the Suns to match with each other.
Whether it be that they are tired of this law, or that they with their Suns descended of French blood, I shall not determine; but the wife of the Great Sun came one day to visit me so early in the morning that I was not got out of bed. She was accompanied with her only daughter, a girl between fourteen and fifteen years of age, handsome and well shaped; but she only sent in her own name by my slave; so that without getting up, I made no scruple of desiring her to come in. When her daughter appeared I was not a little surprized; but I shook hands with them both, and desired them to sit down. The daughter sat down on the foot of my bed, and kept her eyes continually fixed on me, while the mother addressed herself to me in the most serious and pathetic tone. After some compliments to me, and commendations of our customs and manners, she condemned the barbarous usages that prevailed among themselves, and ended with proposing me as a husband for her daughter, that I might have it in my power to civilize their nation by abolishing their inhuman customs, and introducing those of the French. As I foresaw the danger of such an alliance, which would be opposed by the whole nation of the Natchez, and at the same time was sensible that the resentment of a slighted woman is very formidable, I returned her such an answer as might shew my great respect for her daughter, and prevent her from making the same application to some brainless Frenchman, who, by accepting the offer, might expose the French settlement to some disastrous event. I told her that her daughter was handsome, and pleased me much, as she had a good heart, and a well turned mind; but the laws we received from the Great Spirit, forbad us to marry women who did not pray; and that those Frenchmen who lived with their daughters took them only for a time; but it was not proper that the daughter of the Great Sun should be disposed of in that manner. The mother acquiesced in my reasons; but when they took their leave I perceived plainly that the daughter was far from being satisfied. I never saw her from that day forwards; and I heard she was soon after married to another.
From this relation the reader may perceive that there needs nothing but prudence and good sense to persuade those people to what is reasonable, and to preserve their friendship without interruption. We may safely affirm that the differences we have had with them have been more owing to the French than to them. When they are treated insolently or oppressively, they have no less sensibility of injuries than others. If those who have occasion to live among them, will but have sentiments of humanity, they will in them meet with men.
[SECTION IV.]
Of the Temples, Tombs, Burials, and other religious Ceremonies of the People of Louisiana.
I shall now proceed to give some account of the customs that prevail in general among all the nations of North America; and these have a great resemblance to each other, as there is hardly any difference in the manner of thinking and acting among the several nations. These people have no religion expressed by any external worship. The strongest evidences that we discover of their having any religion at all, are their temples, and the eternal fire therein kept up by some of them. Some of them indeed do not keep up the eternal fire, and have turned their temples into charnel-houses.
However, all those people, without exception, acknowledge a supreme Being, but they never on any account address their prayers to him, from their fixt belief that God, whom they call the Great Spirit, is so good, that he cannot do evil, whatever provocation he may have. They believe the existence of two Great Spirits, a good and a bad. They do not, as I have said, invoke the Good Spirit; but they pray to the bad, in order to avert from their persons and possessions the evils which he might inflict upon them. They pray to the evil spirit, not because they think him almighty; for it is the Good Spirit whom they believe so; but because, according to them, he governs the air, the seasons, the rain, the fine weather, and all that may benefit or hurt the productions of the earth.