202 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43

nations which were their enemies join him and would go to destroy them en-
tirely; that nevertheless they would force him to do this if they ventured to
amuse him yet longer. These chiefs, after having admitted all the treason
and all the deception of their nation, assured him that they had never appeared
in the councils which were held to invite the English to come to establish
themselves among them; that the French who were at that time in the village
of the Natchez could render tlem that justice; that regarding the assassination
of the Frenchmen they had only known of it eight days afterward, and that
they had regretted them and wept. At that moment they gave forth great sighs
and shed some tears. M. de Bienville asked them what they regretted. They
replied that it was time to confess such things as were past; that three war
chiefs of the villages of the Walnuts [Hickories], of White Earth, and the
Grigras were the sole authors of the disorders which had taken place in their
nation; that it was these three chiefs that had brought the English into their
village; that it was at their orders that the Frenchmen had been killed; that
there were two of them in irons in our prison; that one was called The Bearded
Chief, who was their mother's brother, and the other Alahofl6chia; a that the
third had not descended with them and was called the Chief of White Earth;
that these three chiefs for a year back had assumed so much authority in their
nation that they were more feared and obeyed than themselves. The chief
Tattooed-serpent also made known the fact that there were in our prison two
other warriors who had killed the last Canadian in the month of March, and
affirmed that he was entirely unacquainted with the others.
 M. de Bienville said to these three chiefs that he had always doubted that
they had had part in the unfortunate events which had taken place, and that
henceforth he did not wish they should go into prison.
 The 25th of May the two war chiefs who had been sent to their village to
get the head of the chief of White Earth returned without bringing it and
saying that he had fled.b They brought many slaves who belonged to the
Frenchmen who had been killed. They also brought along many of their
effects. The number of sick, which increased every day in our little camp,
determined M. de Bienville to terminate this little war.
 The 1st day of June he had all of the chiefs and the others who had been
there for a month, except the four criminals, go out of the fort. He made them
come to his house, where were the three other chiefs, and said to them that he
was very willing to give them their lives and accord them peace on condition
that they would give him their word that they would kill the chief of White
Earth as soon as they should meet him and would send the head to the French
officer who was among them ; that for the present they should consent that the
two war chiefs and the two warriors who were then in irons in our prison
should be put to death in reparation for the murder which they had committed;
that they should have restored all that had been pillaged, and for that which
was found to be lost that they would make their people pay the value of it in
pelts and provisions; that they would oblige their nation to cut 2,500 posts of
acacia wood, 3 feet long and 10 inches in diameter, and to carry all to a place
near the river Mississippi which would be indicated to them by us in order to
build us a fort: that they would furthermore place themselves under obliga-
tions to furnish us 3,000 pieces of bark from cypress trees to cover our lodgings,
and this before the end of July.
 All these chiefs thanked M. de Bienville; each one of them made him a speech
in which they protested their devotion to the French, saying that in the future

 I The writer's Natchez informant believed this to be Ula-home'cia or Ula-hobe'ca, Shed
snake-skin."
 SLa Harpe speaks of him as having been killed at this time, but he is evidently wrong
(see p. 207). It will be noticed that this chronicler's estimate of the great Sun is different
from P6nicaut's.