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SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL LIFE 105
with the following anecdote : It happened that a young Choctaw having done
something deserving reproof, he was therefore chid by his mother ; this he
took so ill as in the fury of his shame to resolve his own death, which he
effected vv^ith a gun ; his sister as his nearest relation thought herself bound
to avenge his death, and knowing the circumstances told her mother she had
caused her brother's death and must pay for his life; the old woman resigned
herself to her fate, and died by the hands of her daughter, who shot her
with a gun which she had provided for the catastrophe.^
This law of retaliation bulks large in reports sent in by the early
white emissaries and agents. In a letter to Henry Dearborn, Secre-
tary^ of War, dated March 4, 1803, Claiborne says
Some Indian depredations have been committed on the road leading to Nash-
ville, but they are by no means as great as has been represented. In the course
of four months past one person has been killed and two wounded. The deceased
(a Mr. White) was shot by some Creeks, as satisfaction for a Creek Indian who
was murdered not long since in Kentucky. A Mr. Patterson was shot and
wounded by Lewis Vaun, a Choctaw, with a view to avenge the loss of his
brother, who was supposed to have been killed in this territory about two
years ago ; and a Mr. Hogan was lately wounded by a party of Choctaws, who
had set out to take a life as compensation for an Indian who was killed in
Natchez about two months ago. No other mischief has been done by the
Indians in the Wilderness (unless it be the stealing of some horses) for some
years, and this has proceeded from the rigid execution of the " Lex talionis."
Several other letters were written by Claiborne regarding these
cases.^
A curious account of a murder, apparently grounded in jealousy,
is thus related in detailing the proceedings of a congress of Chickasaw
and Choctaw Nations opened at Mobile by John Stuart, the
British agent, on December 31, 1771
A party of hunters from Toussanna [or Coussana] had in [the] winter last
met a white man in the woods who had lost his way and was at the point of
death for want of nourishment, that they the Indians had fed and taken great
care of him, by which means he had recovered entirely. That after some days
he joined another party of Choctaws, in order to return to the nation, at which
the person who had taken such care of him being offended, pursued and killed
him. The agent insisted that the Indian who had done the deed be himself
killed, and after a conference among themselves the Choctaw chiefs agreed
to it.'
Claiborne attempted to encourage the substitution of monetary
compensation for blood revenge, the usual route by which this custom
was modified and brought to an end. In a letter to Dearborn,
written August 16, 1804, he says
Hooshe Hoomah, or the Red Bird, a Choctaw chief, regrets the loss of a
relation killed some years ago in Kentucky. Some of the connections of the
deceased speak of revenge but the Red [Bird] is much opposed to the shedding
s Romans, E. and W. Fla., pp. 87-88.
* MS. vol. of " The Proceedings of the Governor of the Mississippi Territory as Superintendent
of Indian Affairs." Miss. State Dept. of Archives. For the religious motive
behind man-killing see p. 220.
' Miss. State Archives, English Dominions.
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