106 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43

Honored man, and his great-grandson a Stinkard. Hence it happens, on
account of their long lives-for these people often see the fourth generation-
that it is a very common thing for a Sun to see his posterity lost among the
common people.'
 The women are free from this unpleasantness. The nobility is maintained
from mother to daughter, and they are Suns in perpetuity without suffering
any alteration in dignity. However, they are never able to attain the sov-
ereignty any more than the children of the male Suns, but the eldest son of the
female Sun nearest related to the mother of the reigning Sun is the one who
mounts the throne when it becomes vacant. The reigning Sun bears the title
of great Sun.
 As the posterity of the two first Suns has become much multiplied, one per-
ceives readily that many of these Suns are no longer related and might ally
themselves together, which would preserve their blood for the most part with-
out any mixture, but another law established at the same time opposes an
invincible obstacle, namely, that which does not permit any Sun to die a violent
death. It is this, that it was ordered that when a male or female Sun should
come to die his wife or her husband should be put to death on the day of the
funeral, in order to go and keep him company in the country of spirits. That
could not be carried out if the wife and husband were both Suns, and this
blind and barbarous custom is so punctually observed that the Suns are under
the pleasing necessity of making mesalliances.b

 Concerning the despotic authority of the great Sun, Du Pratz
says:
 In fact these people are reared in such perfect submission to their sover-
eign that the authority which he exerts over them is a veritable despotism,
which can be compared only to that of the first Ottoman emperors. He is,
like them, absolute master of the goods and life of his subjects, he disposes of
them according to his pleasure, his will is his reason, and, an advantage which
the Ottomans have never had, there is neither any attempt on his person nor
seditious movements to fear. When he orders a man who has merited it to be
put to death, the unhappy condemned individual neither begs nor makes inter-
cession for his life, nor seeks to escape. The order of the sovereign is executed
on the spot and no one murmurs. The relatives of the great chief share more
or less of his authority in proportion to the nearness in blood, and the Tattooed-
serpent has been seen to have three men put to death who had arrested and
bound a Frenchnmn whom he loved much, in order to kill him, although we
were then at war with the Natchez.c
 The great chief or great Sun wore, as a mark of his preeminent
position and authority, a feather crown.
 This crown is composed of a cap and a diadem, surmounted by large feathers.
The cap is made of a netting, which holds the diadem, which is a texture 2
inches broad and presses together behind tightly as is desired. The cap is of
black threads, but the diadem is red and embellished with little beads or small
white seeds, as hard as beads. The feathers which surmount the diadem are
white. Those in front may be 8 inches long, and those behind 4 inches. These

 a The Suns conceal this degradation of their descendants with so much care that
they never suffer strangers to be taught about it. They do not wish anyone to recog-
nize them as being of their race, neither that they themselves boast of it nor that their
people speak about it among themselves. It is much when the grandfathers say that
such an one is dear to them.-[Note by Du PRATZ.]
 Du Pratz, Ilist. de La Louisiane, II, 393-397.
 Ibid., 352-353.