siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

40 BUEEAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 103
their annual burning off of the woods, it was an easy matter to travel in any
direction and any distance, except through the vast cane-brakes that covered
all the bottom lands, which alone could be passed by paths/'
Other travelers than the author of the Anonymous Memoir com-
plain of Choctaw filthiness, which Bossu hardly excuses sufficiently
when he says : " The Chacta men and women are very dirty, since the
greater part of them live at a distance from rivers," '^^ At any rate
few were able to swim, as attested several times by Adair, and
again by Eomans, who makes an exception, however, in favor of
the Chickasawhay and Yowani Indians." It is, therefore, not sur-
prising to learn from one of our earliers French authorities*^ that
they used no canoes, but this was determined rather by circumstances
than by taste.
For the bottom layer of logs employed in making a raft they are
said to have preferred cypress and ash which they fastened together
with vines, placing more logs crosswise above.
According to one of my own informants the Choctaw would not
swim in running water largely from the great dread they had of
snakes, but they scooped out earth close to the river bank and bathed
in the water which accumulated there. This may mark an innova-
tion in the ancient Choctaw customs.
The wooden mortars will be described more at length presently
and we have no information from early writers regarding their pottery
except the mere fact that they had it. The most that we know
to-day is the information that has been obtained by Mr. Collins as
the result of archeological work on old Choctaw village sites.*" Their
basketry industry, however, has survived to the present time. They
collected the canes and made baskets from them in winter because
cane is said to be too brittle in summer. The outside skins of the
canes which were to be used were split off by means of a knife made
especially for the purpose, and usually by the silversmith. Before
the whites came it is claimed that they skinned the cane " with a
whetstone made of a piece of hickory which had turned to rock."
Canes were kept in stacks covered an inch or two with water. After
the skins had been removed they were made into rolls of different
sizes, selling about fifty years ago for 25 cents to a dollar. A 25-cent
roll would make about three baskets, each holding four quarts of
meal. A basket of meal packed in this way was formerly sold for
25 cents, but now it brings from 50 cents to a dollar. They had
*" H. B. Cushman : Hist, of the Choc, Chick., and Natchez Inds. Greenville, Tex.,
1899. P. 234.
"Appendix, p.
^^ Adair, Hist.
260 ; Bossu, Noiiv. Voy., vol. 2, p. 94.
Amer. Inds., pp. 283, 291-292, 304, 404; Romans, Nat. Hist. E. and W.
Fla., pp. 72, 86.
*^ Miss. State Archives, French Dominions.
"Potsherds from Choctaw village sites in Mississippi. Henry B. Collins, in Journ.
Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 17, no. 10, 1927, pp. 259-263.