The Memories of Fifty Years / Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest

by W. H. Sparks

So soon as he was inaugurated chief and supreme ruler, he went out in the midst of the assembled multitude and called down in their presence fire from the sun; blessed it and made it holy. He created a guard of eight men, made them priests and gave them charge of the fire, and bid them, under pain of death, to preserve and keep alive this holy fire. They must tend it day and night and feed it with walnut wood, and in their charge it went before the moving host to where he had promised they should find a new and better home than the one they were leaving.

Another tradition says, they were aiders of the Spaniards in the conquest of Mexico, and that these became as great persecutors of their people as the Aztecs. But from many of their traditions connected with their new home which extended back far beyond the conquest of Mexico, it is thought by historians that this tradition alludes to some other war in which they took part against their oppressors. They were remarkable for their size and symmetry of form of their men; but like all the race, they made slaves of their women, imposing every burden from the cultivation of their fields to the duties of the household—the carrying of heavy burdens and the securing of fuel for winter. These labors served to disfigure and make their women to appear prematurely aged and worn, and they seemed an inferior race when compared with the men.

The laws imposed by their chief of the sun were strictly obeyed. They compelled the telling of truth on all occasions; never to kill, but in self-defence; never to steal, and to preserve inviolate the marriage-vow. The marriage ceremony was poetic and impressive. No girl ever dreamed of disobeying her parents in the choice of a husband; nor was elopement ever heard of among them; nor did the young man presume to thrust himself upon a family to whom, or to any member of whom, he was not acceptable. But when the marriage was agreeable to the families of both parties and was consequently determined upon, the head of the family of the bride went with her and her whole family to the house of the bridegroom, who there stood with all his family around him, when the old man of the bridegroom's family welcomed them, by asking: "Is it thou?" "Yes," answered the other ancient. "Sit down," continued the other. Immediately all were seated, and a profound silence for many minutes ensued. Then the eldest man of the party bid the groom and bride to stand up, when he addressed them in a speech in which he recapitulated all the duties of man and wife; informed them of the obligations they were assuming, and then concluded with a lecture of advice as to their future lives.

When this ceremony was concluded, the father of the bridegroom handed to his son the present he was to make to the family of the bride. Then the father of bride stepped up to the side of his daughter, when the groom said to the bride: "Wilt thou have me for thy husband?" The bride answered: "With all my heart; love me as I will love thee; for thou art my only love for all my life." Then holding the gift above her head, the groom said: "I love thee; therefore I take thee for my wife, and this is the present with which I buy thee," and then he handed the present to her parents. Upon his head he wore a tuft of feathers, and in his hand a bow, emblematic of authority and protection. The bride held in one hand a green twig of the laurel-tree, and in the other an ear of corn—the twig indicated she would preserve her fame ever fair and sweet as the laurel leaf; the corn was to represent her capacity to grow it and prepare it for his food, and to fulfil all the duties of a faithful wife. These ceremonies completed, the bride dropped the ear of corn which she held in her right hand, and tendered that hand to the bridegroom, who took it and said: "I am thy husband." She replied: "I am thy wife." The bridegroom then went round and gave his hand to every member of the family of his wife. He then took his bride by the arm and led her around and she took the right hand of all the family of the bridegroom. This done, he walked with her to his bed, and said: "This is our bed, keep it undefiled."

There obtained among these primitive beings a most curious and most disgusting custom. The young marriageable females were permitted to prostitute themselves for gain, in order to provide a marriage portion; and she who could thus enrich herself was the most distinguished and the most sought. But after marriage, she was compelled to purity, both by their laws and by public sentiment; and in all the intercourse of the French with them, no instance of infidelity was ever known in a wife.

The great sun was indeed their Lycurgus. If before his advent among them they had any laws, these had become obsolete, and his edicts adopted universally. Their traditions represent him as living to extreme old age, seeing his descendants of the fourth generation. These were all little suns, and constituted the nobility of their nation, which extended at one time to the country above, as far as St. Louis and across to the Wabash. These traditions were carefully kept. Every two years there were selected from the most intelligent boys of the nation ten, to whom these traditions were carefully taught by the depositories of them who had kept them best for the greatest time. They were careful to exact that no word or fact should be withheld, and this lesson was daily taught until the boy was a man, and every legend a familiar memory. These he was compelled to repeat daily lest the memory should rust, and for this purpose they went forth to all the villages repeating all of these legends to all the people.

There were others selected in like manner to whom the laws were taught as the traditions, and in like manner these were taught the people. In every community there was a little sun to administer these laws, and every complaint was submitted to him, and great ceremony was observed at every trial, especially criminal trials. The judge, or little sun, purified himself in the forest, imploring the enlightenment of the Good Spirit, and purging away the influence of bad spirits by his purification; and when he felt himself a fitted tabernacle of pure justice, he came forward and rendered his judgment in the presence of all the villagers of his jurisdiction, whose attention was compulsory.

It was one of the laws established in the beginning of the reign of the Great Sun, that his posterity should not marry inter se, but only with the common people of the nation. This custom was expelling the pure blood of royalty more and more every generation, and long after the arrival of the Natchez upon the Mississippi, the great and little suns were apparently of the pure blood of the red man. Their traditions, however, preserved the history of every cross, and when Lasalle found these at Natchez and the White Apple village, nearly every one could boast of relationship to the Great Sun. At that time they had diminished to an insignificant power, and were overawed by their more numerous and more powerful neighbors, the Choctaws and Muscagees or Alabamas. Their legends recorded this constant decline, but assigned no reason for it. They could now not bring more than two thousand warriors into the field. Gayarie says not more than six hundred; but those contemporaneous with planting the colony of Orleans say, some two thousand, some more, and some estimate them as low as the number stated in that admirable history of Louisiana whose author is so uniformly correct. And here let me acknowledge my obligations to that accomplished historian, and no less accomplished gentleman, for most of the facts here stated, and if I have used his own language in portraying them to a great extent, it was because it was so pure and beautiful I could not resist it, the excuse the Brazilian gave for stealing the diamond.

With regard to these people, their mode of life was that of most of the other tribes. They lived principally by the chase; their only cultivation was the Indian corn, pumpkins, and a species of wild beans or peas, perfectly black, until their intercourse with the French, and then they only added a few of the coarser vegetables. From whom they derived the pumpkin is not known.

Their wars were not more frequent or more destructive than those of their neighbors; and their general habits were the same. Still they were going on to decay, and they contemplated with stolid calmness their coming extinction. They felt it a destiny not to be averted or avoided by anything they could do, and were content with the excuse of folly for all its errors and sins. It is the will of God, or the Great Spirit, as the Indian phrases it. They were more enlightened than their neighbors, as historians have stated, because, I suppose, they were more superstitious. They bowed to fate, the attribute of superstition everywhere, and made no effort at relief from the causes of decay.