siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

170 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
war. They are both made similarly. When they have concluded the peace the
master of ceremonies lights this calumet and has all those who are in the assembly
smoke two or three whiffs. Then the treaty is concluded and inviolable.
They deliver this calumet to the chief with whom they make the contract which
is as a hostage of their good faith and the fidelity with which they wish to
observe the articles on which they have agreed.^'
BURIAL CUSTOMS
This feature of ancient Choctaw culture was developed so strik-
ingly that more attention is devoted to it by writers on the tribe than
to any other native custom. In his History of Alabama ^* Pickett
furnishes a lengthy account of the burial ceremonies based upon
earlier materials, but by all odds the best is that by the late Henry S.
Halbert, which not only draws upon all earlier sources available to
him at the time but incorporates a mass of material from the per-
sonal observations of the author and the memories of the best informed
Choctaw with whom he was acquainted.^^ In fact this single
paper contains a sufficiently full accoimt for all practical purposes
and leaves little to be added. However, it being the plan of the
present writer to incorporate all of the material contained in original
sources and a few of these not having been available to Mr. Halbert,
the entire ground will be reviewed again, Halbert's narrative being
placed at the end.
Two descriptions have been left by French writers, and these are
put first, since at least one of them is undoubtedly the earliest of all,
while the second is practically contemporary with the account given
by Adair. The anonymous French narrator says
When a sick person is near death the doctor leaves him and informs his
relatives of it, assuring them that he cannot recover. Then the women come to
wash his body, paint him, daub his face, dress him in all of the finest clothes
which he had, and lay him on the ground in the open space in front of his door.
His wife lies on his stomach weeping, with his nearest relatives who also lie
upon him and stille him. They ask him why it is that he hungers to die, if he
has lacked anything, if his wife did not love him enough, if he was not well
respected in his village; in fact this unfortunate patient is obliged to die in
spite of himself. Those who have lain down on him cry at the top of their
lungs, imagining that he does not hear, since he does not reply. Besides these,
there are the hired criers who during this time come to weep or rather howl to
music beside the body, before and after his death. As soon as he is dead his
relatives erect a kind of cabin in the shape of a coffin, directly opposite his door
six feet from the ground on six stakes, surrounded by a mud wall, and roofed
with bark, in which they enclose this body all dressed, covering it with a
blanket. They place food and drink beside him, giving him a change of shoes,
his gun, powder, and balls. They say that it is because he is going into another
''^ Appendix, pp. 253-254 ; Mem. Am. Auth. Assn., v, p. 67.
2* Pickett, Hist, of Alabama, Sheffield, Ala., 1896, pp. 129-131.
25 Pubs. Miss. Hist. Soc, in, pp. 353-366.