SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER. MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 101

not come near him through respect. When they speak to him, they are 4 paces
distant. Hiis bed is at the right on entering the c:din; there are [under it]
four wooden posts, 2 feet in height, 10 feet apart one way and S the other.
There are crossbars going from one post to another, on which the planks are
placed which form a kind of table, which is very smooth, of the same length
and breadth as that of the bed, which is reddened all over. On this kind of
table there is a mat made of fine canes and a great bolster of goose feathers,
and for covering there are the skills of deer for sumnler and the skins of
bison or hear for winter. Only his wife has the right to sleep there with
him. Only she. too, can eat at his table. When lie gives the leavings 1t his
brothers or any of his relatives, lie pushes the dishes to them with his feet.
On rising, all the relatives or some old men of consideration approach his bed,
and raising their arms on high, make frightful cries. They salute him thus
without his deigning to notice them.
 It must be noticed that a grand chief noble a can marry only a plebeian, but
that the children which come from this union, whether boys or girls, are
nobles; that, if he happens to die before his wife, his wife must be strangled
to accompany him into the other world. In the same manner a girl noble, that
is to say, a daughter of a wife of a chief noble, when she wishes to marry, is
only able to marry a plebeian, and if she dies after she is married before her
husband, the latter has to be put to death also to accompany her in the other
world. The children who come from these marriages are reputed nobles or
Suns.
 Their nobility is very different from that of our Europeans, for in France
the more ancient it is the more it is estoented. Their extraction, on the con-
trary, is no more esteelneqiJltblV t': tle sevenit generationn; moreover, they
draw their nobility fi.(o4ftlr.idomafl ani flot roll lei pJuan. I have asked
them tle reason for '.his:,;'nd they have replied to nii clgtIroi ility can come
only from tlhe wt uAlln".'because the woman to whom chillil.t Ahelong is more
certain than the- .al'qn : :: ': '* *" ".

 Front ClAilcevoix: :.. .. ** ..
 What distilfguishes then more particularly is the form of their government,
entirely despotic; a great dependence, which extends even to a kind of slavery,
in the subjects; more pride and grandeur in the chiefs, and their pacific spirit,
which, however, they have not entirely preserved for some years past.
 The Hurons believe, as well as they, that their hereditary chiefs are de-
scended from the Sun; but there is not one that would be his servant, nor
follow him into the other world for the honor of serving him there, as often
happens among the Natchez. *
 The great chief of the Natchez bears the name of the Sun; and it is always,
as among the Hurons, tile son of the wonlan who is nearest related to himl
that succeeds him. They give this woman tie title of woman chief; and
though in general she does not meddle with the government, they pay her great
honors. She has also, as well as the great chief, the power of life and death.
As soon as anyone has had the misfortune to displease either of them, they
order their guards, whom they call allouez, to kill him. Go and rid me of that
dog," say they; and they are immediately obeyed. Their subjects, and even
the chiefs of the villages, never approach them but they salute then three
times, setting up a cry, which is a kind of howling. They do the same when

 a Unlike other French writers. Prnicaut appears to call the hiLshst grade of tle
nobility chief nobles." equivalent to the Suns of other writers, while the lerm Sun "
he extends over this and the second grade, which he calls nobles."
 SP6nicaut in Margry, Decouvertes, v, 449-451.