ctaws and
Muscagees or Alabamas. Their legends recorded this constant decline,
but assigned no reason for it. They could now not bring more than two
thousand warriors into the field. Gayarie says not more than six
hundred; but those contemporaneous with planting the colony of Orleans
say, some two thousand, some more, and some estimate them as low as the
number stated in that admirable history of Louisiana whose author is so
uniformly correct. And here let me acknowledge my obligations to that
accomplished historian, and no less accomplished gentleman, for most of
the facts here stated, and if I have used his own language in
portraying them to a great extent, it was because it was so pure and
beautiful I could not resist it, the excuse the Brazilian gave for
stealing the diamond.

With regard to these people, their mode of life was that of most of the
other tribes. They lived principally by the chase; their only
cultivation was the Indian corn, pumpkins, and a species of wild beans
or peas, perfectly black, until their intercourse with the French, and
then they only added a few of the coarser vegetables. From whom they
derived the pumpkin is not known.

Their wars were not more frequent or more destructive than those of
their neighbors; and their general habits were the same. Still they
were going on to decay, and they contemplated with stolid calmness
their coming extinction. They felt it a destiny not to be averted or
avoided by anything they could do, and were content with the excuse of
folly for all its errors and sins. _It is the will of God, or the Great
Spirit, as the Indian phrases it._ They were more enlightened than
their neighbors, as historians have stated, because, I suppose, they
were more superstitious. They bowed to fate, the attribute of
superstition everywhere, and made no effort at relief from the causes
of decay.

Their religion, like all the aborigines of the continent, consisted in
the worship of the Great Spirit typified in the sun, to whom was
addressed their prayers and all their devotion. The sacred fire was the
emblem on earth; their Great Sun had brought it from the sun and given
it as holy to them to be forever preserved and propitiated by watching
and prayer. In every village and settlement they erected mounds upon
which the temple of the sun was built, and where was deposited the
sacred fire. Mounds, too, were built for burying-places, and in these
are now to be found in great abundanc