SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 265

for we saw some 25 and 30 years old quite naked. Tile peach trees
were in blossom at the Tonica in the month of January. They are so plentiful
in the village of the Tai;nsa that they cut thel down. There are also pearls
which are very fine. I believe that they are precious, yet they pierce them to
string them.a
 About one day's journey lower down (that is to say, 20 leagues), are the
 Taensas, who speak another language. They are only a short day's journey
 from the Natchez, who are of the same nation and speak the same language.
 For the present I reside among the Tainsas, but amn to go shortly to the
 Natchez. This nation is very great and more numerous than the Tonicas. The
 Taensas are only about 700 souls. *
 I often speak of the Tonicas and the Taensas, and of those who are on the
 banks of the Micissipi going down to the sea, for far inland the Indians are
 in great numbers. They have rather fine temples, the walls of which are of
 mats. That of the Tainsas has walls 7 or 8 feet thick on account of the great
 number of mats one on another. They regard the serpent as one of their
 divinities so far as I could see. They would not dare to accept or appropriate
 anything of the slightest consequence without taking it to the temple. When
 they receive anything it is with a kind of veneration that they turn toward
 this temple. They do not seen to be debauched in their lives. On account of
 the great heit the men go naked, and the women and girls are not well cov-
 ered, and the girls up to the age of 12 years go entirely naked. They are so
 mild and halv so much deference for what we told lthi that I persuade myself
 it will not be very difficult when I know their language a little to reform this
 abuse, which ;among them nllmkes no1 impression, they being accustomed to it
 from childhood. They hIlve also another abuse. When their chiefs are dead,
 as he has been more esteemed, the more persons they kill who offer themselves
 to die with himl. and last year, when the chief of tlhe 'Tl'iiusas died, there were
 12 persons who offered to die, and whom they lm;hawllawketd. There is never
 any winter among them, they do not know snow, and have never seen it.
 There is always grass there, and at the (,nd of January the peach and plum
 trees and violets were in blosssonm. I have seen about this time at the Ta n;sas
 as great heats as in midsummer at Quebec, and yet those who have spent the
 summer there affirii that it is no hotter than at Quebec. The soil is very
 good, the Indian corn grows sometimes 20 feet high. and a single grain will
 send out tell or twelve stalks almost as thick as your arm. There are a
 great many herbs and plants, and others that are unknown to us. If you have
 any wish to see the dress of our Indians, we send one to Mr. Leuisen, who will
 show it to you.c

 As we have seen, Iberville met a TaUnsa Indian in 1699 and was
 given the names of seven Taensa villages, but he must have misunder-
 stood his informant in some particulars since lie places them on the
 "right going up" and a day and a half above "the river of the
 Chicachas "-i. e., the Yazoo.a Shortly after his return to France
De Montigny and Davion came down the Mississippi a second time,
reaching Biloxi July 1. On the 11th they parted for their missions

 a Letter of Mr. Thaumur de la Source, in Shea's Early Voy. Miss., 82-83, 86.
 bIn his letter of Aug. 25, 1699. lie says merely lhat six persons were killed on the
chiefs grave.-Compte Rendu Cong. Internal. des Amir.. 15th sess., I, 49.
 o De Montigny's letter (1699), in Shea's Early Voy. Miss., 76-78, 1861.
 dMargry, Dtcouvertes, iv, 179, 1880..