BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY


[BULL. 43


 As soon as a boy was born the father dropped his own name and
 took that of the child.
 The heads of infants were formerly flattened, as was customary
 among the Mississippi river tribes. Up to the age of 15 or 16 chil-
 dren were compelled to run about the fire to make them vigorous, and
 after that period certain individuals practiced running so assiduously
 that wonderful stories were told of their swiftness. They trained by
 eating nothing but raw eggs and drinking only a kind of tea which
 makes people supple. It is related of one of them that he could
 defeat a horse within the space of a 5 or 6 acre lot, and made his
 living by running.
 The chunkey game was known to them, and a woman's game with
 pieces of cane, similar to that in vogue among the Natchez; also a
 ball game, in which the ball had to be thrown through a ring. For
 musical instruments they used a horn made of cane or reed, a drum,
 and an alligator skin. The drum was made in ancient times by
 stretching a deerskin over the top of a large clay pot, but later the
 end of a hollow log took the place of the pot. Alligator skins were
 prepared by first exposing the alligator to ants until all of the softer
 parts had been eaten out and then drying the skin. Music was made
 by scratching this with a stick.
 Every village of any size had a hd'na katci', or bone house,' occu-
 pied by an official known as the buzzard picker (oc-hd'tcna), and
 as he was continually there, a fire was kept in it night and day. Re-
 garding the mortuary ceremonies, Gatschet speaks as follows:
 One year after the death of a head chief, or of any of the village war chiefs,
 of whom there were four or five, their bones were dug up by a certain class of
 ministrants called "turkey-buzzard men (Osh hid'tchna), the remaining flesh
 separated, the bones wrapped in a new and checkered mat,a and brought to that
 lodge. The inhumation of these bones took place just before the beginning of
 the Kilt-ndihii worshipping ceremony or dance. The people assembled there,
 walked six times around a blazing fire, after which the bones were placed in a
 mound. The widow and the male orphans of the deceased chief had to take
 part in the ceremonial dance. The burial of the common people was effected in
 the same way, one year after death; but the inhumation of the bones took place
 at the village where they had died."
 The writer was told, however, that after the bones had been col-
 lected by the buzzard-picker they were burned and the ashes placed
 in a little oblong covered basket of a type still manufactured, tied
 about with a cord, and given to the relatives of the deceased. In the
same mound was placed all the property of the deceased, or at least
such of it as might be particularly useful to him. This is given as the
reason for the nonexistence of ancient objects among the surviving
 a The burial mat was called ta'na"; sometimes baskets were used instead.
 b Properly Ku'tnahin.
 c Trans. Anthrop. Soc. Wash., II, 8, 1883.


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