56 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43

men, large enough to pass an egg through, which the size and weight of what
they put there from infancy greatly enlarges."

 The beads spoken of by French writers seem to have been im-
 ported, but the imported article probably replaced something similar
 made of shell or stone. Of the beads in use in his time Du Pratz
 remarks:

 When they have beads (rassade) they make necklaces composed of one or
 many rows. They make them long enough for the head to pass through. The
 rassade is a bead of the size of the end of the finger of a small infant. Its
 length is greater than its diameter. Its substance is similar to porcelain.
 There is a smaller one, ordinarily round and white. They valne it more than
 the other. There is a blue one and one of another style which is banded
 (bardelde) with blue and white. The medium sized and the smallest are strung
 to ornament skins, garters, etc."
 To this list of ornaments must be added the pearls referred to bv
 several writers among both Natchez and Taensa. P6nicaut says of
 these:

 They have similarly a necklace of fine pearls which they have received from
 their ancestors, but they are all spoiled because they have pierced tliemn with
 the aid of a hot fire. Two or three are placed around the necks of the infant
 nobles when they come into the world; they wear them to the age of 10 and
 then they are replaced in the temple.c

 TATTOOING

 The greater part have fantastic marks imprinted on the face, the arms, the
legs, and the thighs; so far as the body is concerned, this is a right which be-
longs only to the warriors, and one must be noted on account of the death of
some enemy in order to merit this distinction. They imprint on the stomachs
of their heroes an infinity of black, red, and blue lines: which is not done without
pain. They begin by tracing the design on the skill, then with a needle or a
little bone well sharpened they prick until the blood cones, following the de-
sign, after which they rub the punctures with a powder of the color that the
one who has himself marked demands. These colors having penetrated between
the skin and flesh are never effaced. (
 But the greatest ornament of all these savages of both sexes consists in certain
figures of suns, serpents, or other things, which they carry pictured on their
bodies in the manner of the ancient Britons, of whom Ctsar tells us in his
Commentaries. The warriors, as well as the wives of the chiefs and the Hon-
ored men,e have these figures pictured on the face, arms, shoulders, thighs, legs,
but principally on the belly and stomach. It is for them not only an ornament.
but also a mark of honor and distinction, which is only acquired after many
brave deeds, and here is how these pictures are made: First, in accordance with
the color that is desired, a lman makes either a black mixture of pine charcoal
or, indeed, of gunpowder dissolved in water. or a red of cinnabar or vermilion.
After this five mledium-sized sewing needles are taken, which are arranged on a
little fiat, smooth piece of wood and fastened to the same depth, so tlat one

 Almoire sur La Louisiane, 133.
 D Iu Pratz, list. de La Louisiane, 11, 195 (196).
 'A argry, DPcouvertes, v, 452.
 dMemoire sur La Louisiane, 134-135.
 SThe term adopted by the writer for the French Considerd.