326 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 43

grave. The offering of corn was also made for four days. On the last
of these the people fasted until noon and assembled at the house of
the cemetery guardian. Then they plunged into water four times,
also for the dead, and after a speech from the guardian, he gave them
all a dinner by way of payment. In later times this ended the fast,
but anciently the dinner was followed by a dance.
 The following incident, recorded by La ITarpe, although its ac-
curacy can not be vouched for, at least shows that shamanistic prac-
tices similar to those found elsewhere in America were not wanting.
The shaman here referred to belonged to the little Tioux tribe, but it
is not probable that native Tunica shamans differed in any important
particular.
 The chief of this nation [the Tunica] had at the time a son 15 years old, who
had been baptized and instructed in our holy mysteries by 31. I)avion. A few
months after my departure from the Tonicas lie fell ill and died between the
hands of his pastor and Father Deville, a Jesuit. IIe nmde very strong exhor-
tations to his father and his family, conjuring them to become Christians and
abandon their idolatry. The chief, who loved his son tenderly, who was his eld-
est and his heir, promised him to have himself instructed in our religion and
to he present uninterrultedly at the prayers of AI. Davion. The cure of this
young man had been i ntrusted to a doctor of the Tiou nation; he claimed, after
the death of this child, that if his father had made him a present he would
have saved his life.
 The Tonica chief, to whom these sayings were reported, at once ordered this
doctor to be put to death. Before the execution was carried out lie said to
Cahura-Joligo [the Tunica chief], in the presence of AM. Davion, that he well
saw that lie was unabllle to escape death, but that to prove to him that he was
a great sorcerer after his death the beasts and the birds would respect his
body, so that it should not serve them as prey. After this Tion had been exe-
cuted he was thrown outside, and in truth, as lie had foretold, the birds and
the wild beasts, although in large numbers, did not louch his person at all. I
attribute this outcome to the virtue of some simple with which he had
rubbed his body, the odor of which was repugnant to the aniuials."
 French writers are authority for the statement that the great chief
of the Tunica, when wounded in the second Natchez war, had been
cured in an incredibly short time by native doctors, a period which
the French physicians had declared entirely too short.1 But French
writers generally had an cx:i_ llt'-iItl regard for the skill of Indian
practitioners.
 At the present day everything connected with shamanism proper
has been forgotten, but the herbalist flourished much later, probably
down to the present time, and Gatschet obtained several notes regard-
ing their method of treating disease, which will be published with the
linguistic material relating to this tribe.
 a La arpe in Margry, DIcouvPrtes, vi, 247-248.
 bSee pp. 82-83.