Part 4 - Chapter 5 

Le Page Du Pratz and the Natchez Indians. 

Antoine Simon Le Page Du Pratz was a Dutchman who was born in 1695. He arrived in the colony of Louisiana in 1718, and after four months at Dauphin Island, he proceeded to Bayou St. John where he set up a plantation. He was apparently well off or, at least, comfortable because material on his early life stated that he and "his men" set up the plantation at Bayou St. John. He remained there for about two years and then moved to the region of the Natchez Indians where he spent eight years. In all, he stayed in Louisiana for sixteen years.1

Le Page Du Pratz (to be referred to as Du Pratz) wrote a three volume book in French, Histoire de la Louisiane, on various aspects of Louisiana including the customs, mores, etc. of the Natchez Indians. His book was published in Paris, France in 1758. A few years later, it was translated into English and printed in different editions in 1763, and 1774. However, it was not translated literally, sections of description were left out, and the original three volumes were reorganized and printed, initially, in two volumes and then in one volume. The discrepancies between the original French work and the English translations are manifold in some parts and minor in others; however, both can lead to a lot of misinterpretation as well as misrepresentation.

Unfortunately, many historians have used the translations without referring to the original, and thus have misunderstood and transmitted incorrectly, even though unintentionally, information about early Louisiana and the customs of the Natchez Indians.

The only sections from Du Pratz to be discussed will be those dealing with the dress and adornment of the Natchez Indians.

The original material is taken from the French 1758 edition and translated by the author. The translation is both word for word and paraphrased for clarity. However, the integrity of the meaning is always kept. The only major change made to the original material is in its arrangement. All but a small amount of the material is from volume 2, chapter 15. The material in the chapter has been rearranged according to subject matter. All the material pertaining to women's dress, for example, is grouped together.

The page numbering in the original work is not always sequential and is sometimes redundant. However, it will be noted in brackets exactly as it appears in the text. 

The Natives [Du Pratz never called them savages] of Louisiana, the men and the women, dressed lightly in the summer and assumed that the majority of Europeans did the same if where they lived was of a similar climate to thatof Louisiana [190].

Men

       Native in Summer
When it is hot, the men wear only a "brayer"2 [breechcloth]. This is a piece of white or black dyed dressed deerskin; but few, other than the chiefs, wear it dyed black. Those that are near the French, wear breechcloths of limbourg which are made from a quarter of an ell of cloth which is an ell and a quarter wide. This makes a breechcloth five quarters long by one quarter wide. This way, one finds a border at each end.3 To sustain this breechcloth, they wear a belt around their hips into which they pass one end which emerges 4 inches above the loins. The rest passes between the thighs reentering the belt next to the skin and the end of about a foot and a half falls back on the thighs. Those who have deer-skin make them in the same manner [190].

The men, when it is cold, cover themselves with a "chemise" [cover, shirt, wrapper] made of two deer-skins. These resemble more a dress of the night [night-shirt] than a "chemise" [in this instance translated as only a "shirt"]. The sleeves are only as long as the widest part of the skin permits. There is also a garment that the French call "mitasses" [leggings] which should rather be called "cuissards" since they cover the thighs and go down the haunches until the area of the shoes [moccasins] and enter them at the ankle. When they wear red or blue Limbourg, they take great pleasure in dressing up either in covers [blankets] or in leggings [196].

 Native in Winter


Over all this, when it is very cold, they wear a robe of bison the side next to the skin left white, but with the hair left entirely on [196] which is worn next to the body for warmth. In the country where there are castors [beavers], they make robes using six skins [197].

When the day begins to be much better and the cold is not so violent, the men and the women cover themselves only with deer-skins dressed white and sometimes painted black. There are sometimes some which have paintings4 in designs of different colors as red, or in yellow with black lines [197].

The natives cut their hair round with a crown, as the Capuchins and only leave some hair long to make a twisted tress, thick as the small finger and which hangs over the left ear. This crown is in the same place and almost as large as that of a religious [monk or friar]. At the middle of this crown, are left around two dozen long hairs in order to attach feathers [198].

Although the natives all wear this crown [of hair], nevertheless the hair is not pulled from this [almost bald] place, but it is cut or burned with burning coals. It is not the same with the hair of the armpits and of the beard which they take great care to pull out in order that they never come back. They are not able to suffer to have any hair appear on their bodies although naturally they do not have more than we do [198].  

                                                               Women

  Woman and Daughter


The women in the warm weather wear only a half ell of Limbourg with which they cover themselves. They wind this cloth around their bodies and are well covered from the waist to the knees. When they do not have Limbourg, they employ for the same usage a deer skin. The rest of the body remains uncovered with the men as well as with the women. If the women know how to work them, they make for themselves mantles of feathers or of mulberry bark cloth [191].   

The mantles of thread of mulberry bark are very white and tidy. They are attached with strings of the same thread which have a tassel at each end [193].

When it is warm, the women wear only a mantle in the form of a skirt; but when it is cold, they wear a second one where the [193] middle passes under the right arm and the two corners are attached on the left shoulder. In this manner, the two arms are free and then no one sees but one of the two breasts. They wear nothing on their heads; their hair is all long except some in front which is short. Their hair in the back is fastened in a queue with a net of mulberry threads and tassels at the end. They take great care in taking off their body hair and not leaving any on their body other than the hair on their heads [195].

From their youth the women have [195] a line tattooed across the top of their nose, some on the middle of the chin up and down, others on other different place - certainly the women of the Nations which have an "R" in their language. I have seen those tattooed all over the upper part of their bodies even the breast was tattooed all over although this part of the body is extremely sensitive [196].

  Boys and Girls

The boys and girls are not dressed at all, but when the girls are eight or ten years old, they cover themselves from the waist until the ankle with a fringe of mulberry thread which is attached to a band which goes under the stomach. There is also another band bellow the navel which is joined together from behind to the first. Between one and the other the stomach is covered by a net which holds them. And there are only two large cords from behind each with a tassel. The boys do not begin to cover themselves until the age of twelve or thirteen [193]. 

Warriors

       General Dance

All the finery of a warrior consists in ear pendants which I am coming to describe. (Du Pratz then describes another piece of apparel). [They wear a belt] adorned with small round bells and small house bells when they are able to get them from the French of the sort that when they walk they resemble rather mules than men. But when they have neither small round bells or small house bells, they attach to this sash colocynths [a type of gourd] within which they put a dozen small pebbles so that the attire is complete.5 It is necessary that the warrior has in his hand a war club, if made by the French, it is a [190] small hatchet of which the edge is ordinarily three inches. This hatchet is light and is kept in the belt when one is carrying it or in travel....[191].

The warriors paint designs on themselves6 or paint themselves from the head to the feet, different parts [in] different colors. They wear only a band around the waist for clothes where they pass a breechcloth and where they hang house bells, small round bells, and colocynths. What is more, into this belt is put the war club [420, not in chapter 15].

The youths also are tattooed [198] on the nose and not elsewhere until they are warriors and have made some action of valor; but when they have killed some enemy and have brought back his hair, they then have the right to be tattooed and to ornament themselves with figures suitable to the times [199].

These tattoos are so strong in use among the natives that there is not a man or woman who do not have them made, but the warriors for sure do not deprive themselves of them. Those who have made themselves significant by some feat of importance, have a Knobkerry club [war club] tattooed on their right shoulder and underneath one sees the hieroglyph of the vanquished nation. The others tattoo themselves to their taste [199]. 

Shoes

It is rare that the men or the women wear shoes [moccasins] except if they are making a journey. The shoes of the natives are made of deer skin. They join around the foot as a sock which has the seam above. The skin is cut three digits longer than the foot, and the shoe is only sewed to the same distance around the foot, and all the rest is gathered on the foot. The back is sewn as socks but the quarters [sides] are eight to nine inches high. They go all the way around the leg and are joined in front with a cord of bear skin which takes up from the ankle of the foot and is thus a buskin [half-boot]. These shoes have neither soles nor heels; those of the men and women are the same [195].  

 Ornaments

The women adorn themselves with ear pendants made from the core of a large shell which one calls Burgo, of which I speak. This ear pendant is as large as the little finger and at least as long. They have a hole at the bottom of each ear large enough for these ornaments to lodge there. There is a head a little bigger than the rest which keeps it from falling out [196]. 

March of the Calumet
When they [females] have glass beads, they make necklaces, from one to many rows. They make them long enough to pass over the head. The "rassade" is a bead of the size of the end of a small infant's finger; it is longer than it is wide. The material is similar to that of porcelain. There is a smaller one, but it is round and white ordinarily. They value it more than the other. There is one of blue and also another style which is bordered with blue and white. The medium size and the smallest are pierced [Fr. "ensiler" or strung] to decorate skins, garters etc.[196]

The warriors also make a slit in the bottom of the ear to pass through there threads of iron or of brass in the form of a cork screw a good inch in diameter. These must be strong enough to carry the weight of ear pendants. Because they are so heavy they elongate the ears.7  

 

Crowns

The great chiefs or sovereigns wear crowns of feathers. This crown is composed of a cap and a diadem surmounted by large feathers. The cap is made of a net which holds the diadem which is a material of two inches and which is tied from behind as tightly as one wishes. The cap is of black thread, but the diadem is red and embroidered with small glass beads or of small white seeds and also as durable as a glass bead. The feather on the diadem are white; those in front are eight inched high and those in back are four inches. These feathers are tiered in a curved line. At the end of these feathers is a tuft of hair and beneath, a small tuft of horse hair all of which is not an inch and a half and dyed a very beautiful red. This crown or hat of feathers is an object that satisfies the sight [122].

The princes wear a small diadem whose feathers are no more than four inches and are all equal [371, not in chapter 15.]

Youth

The ornaments for the festivals are in themselves as simple as the attire. The youths are also conceited, as elsewhere, and are fascinated to prove one is better than the other so much so that they paint themselves heavily with vermillion often. They also wear bracelets made from deer ribs which have been made very thin and curved by boiling water. The exterior side of these bracelets is also white and also polished as the ivory. They wear necklaces of glass beads as do the women, and one sometimes sees a fan in their hand. They put white down on the circle of the head which is sheared, but to the tuft of hair [197] or wave of hair which they leave in the middle on the fount of the head, they attach the whitest straight feathers that they can find. Finally, they do all that a young head is capable of inventing to adorn themselves [198].

Du Pratz claimed that the Natchez Indians also used porcupine quills to adorn their garments. However, porcupines were not known to live in the vicinity of the Natchez, so it is assumed by anthropologists, Swanton among them, that they traded for them from Northern tribes.8

Mantles

Du Pratz described how the Natchez women made both feather and mulberry bark thread mantles. Feather mantles are made on a similar loom [or frame] as that which the wig makers work hair. They lay out the feathers in the same manner and attach them on old nets for fishing or on old mulberry bark mantles. They place them in a manner [already] described one on the other and from both sides. They use for this effect small feathers from turkey cocks. The women who can have the feathers from a swan or Indian duck which are white make mantles with these feathers for the "honored" women [192].

To make mulberry bark mantles, they [the women] go searching in the woods for shoots or sprouts of mulberry which come from these trees after they have been felled. These shoots are four to five feet high; they cut them before the sap has passed, remove the bark, and they dry it in the sun. When the bark is dry, they pound it until the coarse[material] falls away. The interior which is like tow [of flax] remains entirely. They pound the new stuff to make it very fine; finally, they blanch it by the dew [192].

When the bark is in this state, they spin the tow similar to the line or thread [used] to stitch shoes [moccasins]. They leave the spinning as soon as they have enough. They put up their loom which consists of two four foot pickets in the ground at the head of which traverses a coarse [192] thread on which the other threads are knotted double. Finally, they make a web [Fr.tissu croisé crossed texture] which has a border of designs around it. This stuff is at least an ell square and a line of thickness [193].

                                             Commentary on the Translations

As previously mentioned, the 1774 translation, which was based on the earlier translation, left out descriptions of the dress of the natives and also changed words and added others which distorted the original information. The translator condensed the material by about one third. Although some of the changes might seem minor, they are major to any chronological study of the material culture of the Natchez and other Indians of the region.

In discussing the dress of the men, the 1774 edition translates the word "brayer" as apron. Even though the translator modifies it by stating that "they are tucked up between the thighs" [344], an apron is very different than clout and also can be interpreted as a one flap garment instead of a two flap garment.

The translator, also substituted the word "yard" for "ell" [344]. This substitution is very misleading because an ell is 45 inches whereas a yard is 36 inches.

The translator, also added to the text when he wrote: "Some women even in hot weather have a small cloak wrapped round like a waistcoat" [344]. This statement is wrong as well as critical because it supposes a change in native dress that did not occur among the Natchez (according to the literature). Likewise, his use of the term "breeches" [345] in discussing "mitasses" is very misleading, especially since an appropriate word "leggings" did exist, because breeches were an anathema to the Indians.

The above information outlines the major mistakes in the translation; however, it cannot illustrate all the material that was left out by the condensation of descriptive information. 


1. Simon Le Page Du Pratz, History of Louisiana - from the 20th century reproduced edition by J.S.W. Harmanson of the 1774 edition.2. Swanton translated brayer as breechcloth. Cassell's French-English Dictionary translates it as sash, truss, strap. For this narrative the term breechcloth will be used for it is more germane.

3. Etymologically, the word "limbous" means having a border or well marked edge - Funk and Wagnall's New Standard Dictionary of the English Language, 1960, page 1436. "Limbous" is from the Latin "limbus". Limbourg cloth is often described as having various borders.John McDermott in A Glossary of Mississippi Valley French 1673-1850, states that Limbourg was a coarse cloth principally gotten from Germany. [page 94.]

4. The French word in the text is matachées. The noun is matacher and means "to paint in various colors or designs", page 102 of A Glossary of Mississippi Valley French 1673-1850, by John Francis McDermott.

5.This section is also paraphrased for clarity of meaning.6. See endnote 4.

7. This section is paraphrased.

8. Swanton, BAE 137, p. 490.