siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

214 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
of his chiefs. McGillivray received him kindly though he was unable to
recognize him for he looked like a skeleton. Food was given him and, as
he was still sick, some days later he had him take some emetic [i. e., cassina]
diluted with sassafras water. This medicine was sufficient to cure his sickness,
but as this savage had suffered much and had been ill for a long time, he
remained four or five months with McGillivray in order to become wholly
restored to health ; I saw him often and he related his adventure to me
himself. When he felt entirely restored, he returned to his own nation.
About eight months had then elapsed since his escape, and his family had
raised a scaffold and performed all the ceremonial rites preceding and accompanying
funerals which I have descrilied above. The doctor had so strongly
persuaded the relatives of this savage that he could not recover from his illness
that, when he appeared in their midst, they looked upon him as a ghost,
and all fled. Seeing that he was left alone, he went to the house of one of his
neighbors who, seized with the same terror, threw himself on the ground, and,
persuaded that this was only a spirit, spoke to him as follows
" Why have you left the abode of souls if you were happy there? Why do
you return to us? Is it in order to be present at tlie last feast which your
family and your friends hold for you? Go! return to the country of the dead
lest j^ou renew the grief which they have experienced at your loss !"
The other, seeing that his presence caused the same fright everywhere,
determined to return to the Creeks, where he saw again, in course of time, many
of his relatives, since these were in the habit of coming there every year. It
was only then that he was able to disabuse them and persuade them that
the doctor had deceived them. They, angered at such a piece of rascality,
sought out the doctor, heaped upon him the most violent reproaches, and
afterwards killed him so that he might deceive no one else. They then made
all possible representations to this savage in order to induce him to return
to them, but he refused steadily and married a woman of the Taskiguys by
whom he had three children, and he lives today at the place where Fort
Toulouse formerly stood."
The subjection of human life to " fate " is also affirmed by Cushman.
*• The ancient Choctaws believed," he says, " and those of the present
day believe, and I was informed by Gov. Basil LeFlore, in 1884, . . .
that there is an appointed time for every one to die." ^
We have already had one reference to native faith in the significance
of certain dreams. Speaking of the Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb,
Louisiana, Bushnell says
The Choctaw hold that it is possible for the " spirit " to leave the body
even during life, and by that belief explain dreams thus
At night when a person is resting and all is quiet the " spirit " steals away
from the body and wanders about the country, seeing many people and things,
which are known to the individual when he awakes. If, during its wander-
ings, the spirit meets large animals of any sort, the person will surely suffer
misfortune before many days have passed.^
At a conference between the Choctaw and French, held in 1751,
one of the Choctaw speakers augured ill for the lives of the French-
"* Apppndix, pp. 267-269 ; Milfort, M6m., pp. 298-304.
1 Cushman, Hist. Inds., p. 246.
^Bushnell, Bull. 48, Bur. Amer. Ethn., p. 29.