WANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 105

as his wife, the right to disfigure the body by carrying on their skins strange
figures, which, as I have said, form their principal adornment.
 Here is still another means by which a Stinkard, provided he is married, may
 attain to the rank of the Honored. If this Stinkard, at the death of the great
chief of the nation, has a child at the breast, or at any rate of very tender years,
lie repairs with his wife and his child to the cabin where this chief is Ilid out.
As soon as they have arrived there the father and mother wring the neck of
their infant, which they throw at the feet of the body, as a victim which they
inimolate to the manies of their chief. After this barbarous sacrifice they roll
between their hands some twists of Spanish beard, which they put under their
feet, as if they would signify by that that they are not worthy to walk on the
earth, and in this condition they both remain stiading before the corpse of the
great chief without changing their positions or taking nourishment all day.
During that time the cabin is visited by all kinds of persons who come, some
from curiosity, others to see one time more the one who had governed tllem
and to desire hlim a good passage. Finally, when the sun hms set, the ma1 a"nd
the vwoma( n cole out of the cabin and receive the compliments of all 11he war-
riors anld Hoored lieil, to the number of whon they have been added by llhis
strange and cruel cerenlony."

 From Du Pratz:

 The Natchez Nation is composed of nobility and people. The people are
called in their language Milich'-.liihc-Quipy, which signifies P'tulnt (Stinkard),
a name, however, which offends them, and which no one dares to pronounce
before them, for it would put them in very bad humor. The Stinkards have a
language entirely different from that of the nobility, to whom they are sub-
missive to the last degree. That of the nobility is soft, solemn, and very rich.
The substantive nouns are declined, as in Latin, without articles. The nobility
is divided into Suns. Nobles, and Honored men. The Snlls are so named be-
cause they are descended front a man and woman who made them believe that
they came out of the sun, as I have said more at length in speaking of their
religion.
 The man and woman who gave laws to the Natchez lhad children, and
ordained that their race should always be distinguished from the mass of the
nation, and that none of their descendants should be put to death for any
cause whatsoever, but shlold complete his days calmly as nature permitted
him. The need of preserving their blood pure and safe made them establish
another usage of which examples are seen only in a nation of Scythians, of
which IIerodotus speaks. As their children, .being brothers and sisters, were
unable to intertlmarry without committing a crime, and as it was necessary in
order to have descendants that they marry Stinkard men and Stinkard
women, they wished in order to guard against the disastrous results of the
infidelity of the women that the nobility should be transmitted only through
women. Their male and female children were equally called Suns and re-
spected as such, but with this difference, that the males enjoyed this priv-
ilege only during their lives and ersonalllly. Their children bore only the
name of Nobles, and the male children of Nobles were only Honored men. These
Honored men, however, might by their warlike exploits be able to reascend to the
rank of Nobles, but their children again became Honored men, and the children
of these Honored men, as well ;as those of the others, were lost in the people and
placed in the rank of Stinkards. Thus the soin of a female Sun (or Snll
wolliall) is a Sull, like his mother, but his son is only a Noble, his grandson an

 I clnio: t, l1ill. [list. sitr La Louisiane, I, 175-181.