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226 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
seldom attended in person but he could easily be reached at the big
mound where he commonly stayed, " like the queen of a beehive."
It was at the last green corn dance held by the Sukanatcha band,
as noted elsewhere, that women are said to have been relieved of
the burden of carrying hampers of corn on their backs. The feast
proper is said to have been on the last day and while the others were
eating the captain spoke to them at length, advising them as to their
dealings with one another. He ate last and others then spoke to
him and praised him in turn.
Men Having Occult Powers and Doctoks
Choctaw who made it their business to deal with the occult belonged
to several different classes. We have quoted Claiborne's remarks
with reference to " a priestly order " called Oon-ka-la, who
had the care of a kind of temple called " the House of Warriors "
(Tashka Tcuka), on the bank of Cushtusha Creek, Neshoba County,
Miss., and said to mark the oldest settlement in the Nation. The
bones of great warriors were buried there, the Oon-ka-la going at
the head of the procession which bore them " chanting hymns in an
unknown tongue." I have already noted the apparent confusion between
this " temple " and that of the Natchez, and I am suspicious
of the information here given, for no one else seems to have been
fortunate enough to learn of a similar priesthood, and the word
Oon-ka-la does not seem to tally with any known to the Choctaw
to-day. Still it has in its favor the fact that Kashtasha was the
chief town of the western division of Choctaw, the Oklafalaya.
The Choctaws [says Cushman] ^ had several classes of dignitaries among
them who were held in the highest reverence: The Medicine Man or Prophet,
the Rain Maker, the Doctor.
Folsom, speaking of all classes of doctors, says that they had
As many of the female as of the male sex, who were quite as successful
in their practice as the latter. The doctors made use of herbs and roots
in various forms, applied and given in different modes—for emetics
cathartics, sweats, wounds, and sores; they also made use of cold baths, scari-
fication, cupping and blistered by means of burning punk, and practiced suction
to draw out pain; some used enchantment, while others practiced by magic,
pretending to have learned the art of healing ... by special revelation,
communicated to them in some retired and unfrequented forest. It was in this
way, also, it was said, that the war-prophets were raised up to lead the people
to battle. At a high price and much expense the doctors of both sexes learned
the mode and manner of the use of herbs and roots. It is a f;ict worthy of
remark, that even now many of them are in possession of some useful and
important means of cure. They have, among other things, an effectual remedy
for the bite of the rattle-snake, or of any other venomous reptile, the bite of
which they consider very easy of cure.'^
^ Cushman, Hist. Iiids., p. 258. sa ibid., pp. 367-368.