SWANTON] INDIAN TRIBES OF THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 349

 Instead of marrying among the common people, however, it is
affirmed that the Chitimacha nobles were constrained to take part-
ners in their own class, which is tantamount to the admission that a
true caste system existed. If a Noble married among the conlmon
people, the writer was informed, he would have to stay with them,
and for that reason many refused to marry at all when no women of
their own caste were to be had, and thus hastened the extinction of the
tribe.
 Totemic clans also existed, but only the wolf, bear, dog, and lion "
 ('haimasi'ks) are remembered. The wolf clan is said to be entirely
extinct, and the lion clan is represented by only one woman. It is
probable that there was a snake clan also. When angry, people
would say to each other You are a bear," You are a wolf," etc. A
person belonged to the same clan as his mother, relationship on her
side being considered closer. Benjamin Paul states that his father's
mother, who explained the totemic system to him and who belonged
to the wolf clan. used to talk to the wolves when she was out in the
woods, and thought that she could induce them to go away. Benja-
min Paul's father was also a wolf, of course, while he and his mother
were of the dog clan. The former chiefs, Champagne and Soulier
Rouge, were bears.
 Each principal Chitimacha town had a chief called nd'tq, and
there is also said to have been a head nd'ta, whose headquarters were
somewhere west of Charenton, perhaps at Ne pinu'nc. The exist-
ence of a head chief appears to be confirmed by French writers.
Besides having a larger house than the other people, a nd'ta was dis-
tinguished by the possession of a peculiar pipe, into which a number
of stems could be inserted. Under the nd'ta' were officers called
nete'xmec, and netc'xmec is the native term for the governor of
Louisiana, the President being presumably considered a nd'tq. The
number of war leaders was very.much greater than the number of
civil chieftainships. GatsThet;was tQol that there were four or five
in each village, but the number was probably not-fixed. Chieftain-
ships seem to.have passed from father to son absolutely regardless
of clan. There are two cases, cited by Gatschet, in which wives
succeeded their husbands. The wife of Soulier Rouge, named Adell
Champagne, and perhaps the daughter of the chief Champagne,
succeeded him on his death four or five years before the civil war.
 Gatschet was told that the Chitimacha were strict monogamists,a
 but this was evidently true only of their later history. Duralde says:
 Before the marriage of a daughter the parents must be satisfied. If she is
 rebellious against the law, her hair is cropped off and she remains dishonored,
 but her children do not participate in her degradation, but hold in the nation
 their proper hereditary rank.b
 STrans. Anthrop. Soc. Wash., Ii, 5, 1883.
 SMS., a copy of which is in the Bureau of American Ethnology.