SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 175

 It will be noted, furthermore, that the names applied to the servants
 of the great Sun and the subordinate spirits of the supreme deity
 were identical. In other words, the Natchez state was a theocracy.
 The supreme being resided in the Sun; the son or near relative of
 the supreme being, having come to earth, taught men religious cus-
 toms, and established their system of government, had retired into
 or taken the form of a stone, which continued to dwell with them in
 the innermost sanctuary of their temple; and his descendants ruled
 in his place, acted as mediators between him and the supreme deity
 on the one hand and the common people on the other, and were
 reverenced either as gods or demigods. This stone image represented
 a higher development of the idea contained in the sacred stone of the
 Kiowa, the pipe of the Arapaho, the arrows of the Cheyenne, and
 perhaps the "ark of the Mandan. The sacred fire, while not the
 holiest object in the temple, was next in consequence, owing to its
 supposedly solar origin, and necessarily strengthened communica-
 tions between the deity and his chosen people. It was natural, there-
 fore, that the distinctive badge of the Natchez among the Indian
 tribes of that region should be the Sun, just as that of the Chakchiou-
 mas was the crawfish and that of the Bayogoulas the alligator, each
 of which was probably the tribal totem or the tribal medicine." Could
 we but bring back the Natchez nation as it once existed in its integ-
 rity, we should probably find their entire national life, its arts, indus-
 tries, and the doings of daily life, as well as its religious rites and
 social organization, woven through and through with solar ideas.
 The mention of a supreme deity at once raises the oft-mooted
 question in what sense this deity was regarded by the Indians them-
 selves as supreme. There can be no doubt, in view of the theocratic
 nature of Natchez society, that for them the sky deity was vastly
 more powerful than all others, but we are also told of numbers of
 lower deities called servants of the Sun, therefore he was not the
 sole deity. His position was evidently thought of as similar to that
 of the great Sun in the absence of the other Suns. Other deities,
 as we are in fact informed, were addressed in prayer and were sup-
 posed to answer such prayers, no doubt without consulting their
 master at all. In case, however, the master interested himself actively
 in any cause his dictate would certainly have been considered final,
 overriding the wills of all his inferiors. Besides, the absolute charac-
 ter of the supreme god of the Natchez, so far as they were con-
 cerned, need not have included a belief on their part that he was
 supreme in the affairs of other nations. With the broad tolerance
 usual among primitive peoples generally in this respect they allowed
other tribes whatever deity or deities were proper to them, not
 a Dumont, Mem. Hist. sur La Louisiane, i, 184-185.