siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

98 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
tion of Mexico, which a slave of that nation who is at the house
of the great chief taught this nation. This is the finest of all the
Indian dances. They performed it very well. Moreover, they are
the best dressed and the neatest of all the Choctaw women I have
seen."
On his way home De Lusser passed through the village of the
Yellow Canes (Oskelagna), where he witnessed a similar ceremony.
The latter part "consisted of a dance which the women executed
around the scalps, but it was pitiful in comparison with that of
Kaffetalaya." The speech of the chief of this town De Lusser has
attempted to report entire and it may be appended as an example of
Choctaw forensics in the third decade of the eighteenth century,
though the sentiments expressed are not on a very high plane. The
chief's devotion to the French and past deficiencies of the latter are
enlarged upon with hope that compensations for the same will be
proportionately ample.
Warriors, I am very glad to have brought you back to your wives and
your children. I am a witness that it was not in your power to die for the
French. As soon as I learned that the Great Chief of the French had sent
a letter to the feet of the Great Chief of the Choctaws to tell him that the
French had died at Natchez and that he had to send his warriors as soon as
possible to avenge their death he did not hesitate one moment to obey this
word which he had always had engraved in his heart and to march at once
on the promise that had been made to pay for the death of his warriors
that nevertheless they had given nothing. That on the contrary Mr. De
Louboey had robbed them by having gone away with the slaves both French
and Negroes whom they had taken from the Natchez without giving them
goods or notes ; that they had attacked the Natchez and had killed many of
them ; that they had waited for the French a very long time and that after
the latter had arrived they had said that they were going to make a breach
in the fort wath their cannon and that the Choctaws had only to put themselves
in the places by which the Natchez might flee that not a single one
might escape; but that the cannon of the French had made much noise but
had had little effect ; that it was as if one si>at on the ground ; that nevertheless
they kept telling them at every moment, pointing at the sun meanwhile, that
at such and such an hour the fort would be laid low; but that the ball did
not even touch the palisade; that when the Natchez put a calumet of peace
at the end of a stick the French had been very glad and had made peace
on the terms that they should return the French and the Negroes to them;
that the French had no hearts, that they had seen the corpses of their people
as well as those that had been recently burnt, but that that had not touched
them at all; that for his part he could not think of it without saddening
of the heart; that the Tunicas and other small nations had not wished to
fight because the French had put some of them in chains and treated the red
men like slaves ; that also they had the French everywhere ; that they stole the
skins of the Indians, being ungrateful for their goods; that for their part
very far from killing the French they were avenging their death, and that
for his part he would always listen to the word of the French, and would
never abandon them.