“After this expedition I thought of nothing but proceeding on my journey, and with that design I let the Red-men return home, and joined myself to those who inhabited more westward on the coast, with whom I travelled along the shore of the Great Water, which bends directly betwixt the north and the sun-setting. When I arrived at the villages of my fellow-travellers, where I found the days very long, and the nights very short, I was advised by the old men to give over all thoughts of continuing my journey. They told me that the land extended still a long way in a direction between the north and sun-setting, after which it ran directly west, and at length was cut by the Great Water from north to south. One of them added, that when he was young, he knew a very old man who had seen that distant land before it was eat away by the Great Water, and that when the Great Water was low, many rocks still appeared in those parts. Finding it, therefore, impracticable to proceed much further on account of the severity of the climate, and the want of game, I returned by the same route by which I had set out; and reducing my whole travels westward to day’s journeys, I compute that they would have employed me thirty-six moons; but on account of my frequent delays, it was five years before I returned to my relations among the Yazous.”
The remarkable difference between the Natches, including in that name the nations whom they treat as brethren, and the other people of Louisiana, made me extremely desirous to know whence both of them might originally come. We had not then that full information which we have since received from the voyages and discoveries of M. De Lisle, in the eastern parts of the Russian empire. I therefore applied myself one day to put the keeper of the temple in good humour; and having succeeded in that without much difficulty, I then told him, that from the little resemblance I observed between the Natches and the neighbouring nations, I was inclined to believe that they were not originally from the same country which they then inhabited; and if the ancient speech taught him any thing on that subject, he would do me a great pleasure to inform me of it. At these words he leaned his head on his two hands, with which he covered his eyes; and having remained in that posture about a quarter of an hour, as if to recollect himself, he answered to the following effect:—
“Before we came into this land we lived yonder, under the sun, (pointing with his finger nearly south-west, by which I understood he meant Mexico); we lived in a fine country, where the earth is always pleasant; there our sons had their abode, and our nation maintained itself for a long time against the ancients of the country, who conquered some of our villages in the plains, but never could force us from the mountains. Our nation extended itself along the Great Water where this large river loses itself; but as our enemies were become very numerous, and very wicked, our Suns sent some of our subjects who live near this river, to examine whether we could retire into the country through which it flowed. The country on the east side of the river being found extremely pleasant, the Great Sun, upon the return of those who had examined it, ordered all his subjects who lived in the plains, and who still defended themselves against the ancients of the country, to remove into this land, here to build a temple, and to preserve the eternal fire.
“A great part of our nation accordingly settled here, where they lived in peace and abundance for several generations; the Great Sun, and those who had remained with him, never thought of joining us, being tempted to continue where they were by the pleasantness of the country, which was very warm, and by the weakness of their enemies, who had fallen into civil dissensions in consequence of the ambition of one of their chiefs, who wanted to raise himself from a state of equality with the other chiefs of the villages, and to treat all the people of his nation as slaves. During those discords among our enemies, some of them even entered into an alliance with the Great Sun, who still remained in our old country, that he might conveniently assist other brethren who had settled on the banks of the Great Water to the east of the large river, and extended themselves so far on the coast, and among the isles, that the Great Sun did not hear of them sometimes for five or six years together.
“It was not till after many generations that the Great Suns came and joined us in this country, when, from the fine climate and the peace we had enjoyed, we had multiplied like the leaves of the trees. Warriors of fire, who made the earth to tremble, had arrived in our old country, and having entered into an alliance with our brethren, conquered our ancient enemies; but attempting afterwards to make slaves of our sons, they, rather than submit to them, left our brethren, who refused to follow them, and came hither attended only by their slaves.”
Upon my asking him who those warriors of fire were, he replied, “that they were bearded white men, somewhat of a brownish colour, who carried arms that darted out fire with a great noise, and killed at a distance; that they had likewise heavy arms which killed a great many men at once, and like thunder made the earth tremble; and that they came from the sun-rising in floating villages.”
“The ancients of the country,” he said, “were very numerous, and inhabited from the western coast of the Great Water to the northern countries on this side the sun, and very far up on the same coast beyond the sun. They had a great number of large and small villages, which were all built of stone, and in which there were houses large enough to lodge a whole village. Their temples were built with great labour and art, and they made beautiful works of all kinds of materials.”
“But ye yourselves,” said I, “whence are ye come?” “The ancient speech,” he replied, “does not say from what land we came; all that we know is, that our fathers, to come hither, followed the sun, and came with him from the place where he rises; that they were a long time on their journey, were all on the point of perishing, and were brought into this country without seeking it.”
Les Marches Naturelles,
near Quebec.