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44 BUREAU OF AMERICAN" ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
feathers indicated mourning and were the only ones that could be
put on when there had been a death in the family. It was princi-
pally the chiefs who used them, however, the others confining themselves
to black cloth. The turkey feather distinguished a good
turkey hunter and also a good hunter of birds in general. When a
weather prophet was seen adorned with a feather of the hushi cha'ha,
" tall crane," it was a sign of wet weather ; if he was seen without
it the weather would be dry. A tall, stout man, or one mentally
strong or conspicuously honest, donned eagle feathers. These
feathers were not worn all of the time, and it is said that only in
later times were they used for ornament. All kinds were resorted
to except feathers of the ostrich and some other birds introduced
by the whites. In later times, however, ostrich feathers seem to
have taken the place of crane feathers in the headdresses of the
chief and captains.
A deer tail, or, failing that, a horse tail, was mounted on a stick
and fastened behind by a man who was a fast runner, particularly
by a ball player. The tail of a wild cat or a tiger tail would be worn
by a great fighter, and a deer tail indicated a skillful deer hunter.
As a whole their manner of life was similar to that of the Creeks,*^
and this fact is reflected in a certain agreement between the month
names used by the two peoples. Regarding their method of count-
ing time, Cushman says:
They had no calendar, but reckoned time thus : The months, by the full or
the years by the killing of the vegetation by the wintry frosts.
crescent moons ;
Thus, for two years ago the Choctaw would say: Hushuk (grass) illi (dead)
tuklo (twice) ; literally, grass killed twice, or, more properly, two killings of
the grass ago. The sun was called Nittak hushi—the Day-sun ; and the moon,
Nenak hushi, the Night-sun and sometimes, Tekchi hushi—the Wife of the sun.
Their almanac was kept by the flight of the fowls of the air; whose coming
and going announced to them the progress of the advancing and departing
seasons. Thus the fowls of the air announced to the then blessed and happy
Choctaw the progress of the seasons, while the beasts of the field gave to him
warning of the gathering and approaching storm, and the sun marked to him
the hour of the day ; and so the changes of time were noted, not by figures,
but by days, sleeps, suns and moons—signs that bespoke the beauty and poetry
of nature. If a shorter time than a day was to be indicated an Indian drew
two parallel lines on the ground, a certain distance apart, and then pointing
to the sun he would say, " It is as long as it would take the sun to move
from there to there." The time indicated by the moon was from its full to
the next ; that of the year, from winter to winter again, or from summer to summer.
To keep appointments, a bundle of sticks containing the [same] number
of sticks as there were days from the day of appointment to the appointed [day],
was kept; and every morning one was taken out and thrown away, the last
stick announced the arrival of the appointed [day]. This bundle of sticks was
called Full (sticks) kauah (broken) broken sticks.'"
" See Forty-second Ann. Rept. Bur. Amer. Bthn., pp. 358-470.
« Cushman, Hist. Inds., pp. 249-250. But fuli (or fili) means "to peel off." There
Is also a reference to the counting of days by means of sticks stuck up in the ground.