University of Virginia Library

---

283

XXXVII. XXXVII

ETHNOLOGICAL INFORMATION DESIRED

XXXVII. [From original MS. in possession of Mrs. Julia Clark Voorhis and Miss Eleanor Glasgow Voorhis.
The handwriting is that of Clark, and apparently is a transcript of instructions from Jefferson.]

Inquiries relitive to the Indians of Louisiana.

1″st Physical History and Medicine

• What is their State of Life as to longivity?
  at what age do both Sexes usially marry?

• How long do the Woman usually succle their Children?

• What is the diet of their Children after they wean them?

• Is polygamy admited among them?

• What is the State of the pulse in both Sexes, Children, grown
  persons, and in old age, by feeling the Pulse Morning, Noon
  & Night &c.?

• What is their most general diet, manner of cooking, time and
  manner of eating; and how doe they preserve their provisions?

• What time do they generally consume in Sleep?

• What are their acute diseases?

• Is rheumatism, Pluricy or bilious fevers known among them? &
  does the latter ever terminate in a vomiting of black matter?

• What are their chronic diseases—are palsy, apoplexy, Epilepsy,
  Madness, the goiture (or Swelled Neck) and the Venereal disease
  known among them?

• What is their mode of treating the Small pox particularly?

• Have they any other disease amongst them, and what are they?

• What are their remidies for their different diseases?

• Are artificial discharges of blood used among them?

• In what manner do they generally induce evacuation?

• Do they ever use Voluntary fasting?

• What is the nature of their baths, and at what time of the day
  do they generally use them

• at what age do their women begin and cease to menstruate?

---

284

2″nd Relative to Morrals

• What are the Vices most common among the Indians?

• Do they ever resort to Suicide under the Influence of their passions,
  particularly love?

• Is murder common among them, and do their Laws punish it by
  Death?

• Are the lives of the Wife and Children subject to the Capprice
  of the husband, and father, and in case of the murder by him
  of either do their Laws punish the Culprit with Death?

• Can the crime of murder be paliated by precuniary Considerations?

• do they use any liquor or Substitute to premote intoxication, besides
  ardent Spirits?

• Are they much attached to Spiritous liquors, and is intoxication
  deemed a Crime among them?

• Have they any and what are the punishments of Which their usuages
  admit of—for either crimes

3″rd Relative to Religion

• What affinity is there between their religious ceremonies and those
  of the ancient Jews?

• do they use animal sacrifices in their Worship?

• What are the principal objects of their Worship?

• Do they Consider Mannatoe or the good Spirit & Michimannatoe
  or the bad Spirit as two distinct powers, neither haveing the
  power of Controling the other?

• Do they ever petition the Good Spirit to interfere with his power
  to avert or relieve them from the evils which the bad Spirit
  meditates or is practicing against them

• Do they sacrifice to, or petition the bad Spirit in order to avert
  the pernicious design which they may conceive he has formed
  against them.

• How do they dispose of their dead?

• and with what ceremonies do they inter them?

• do they ever use human sacrifices in any case

• do they Mourn for their disceased friends and what [is] their cerimony
  on Such occasions.

4″th Traditions or National History

• From what quarter of the earth did they emigrate as related to
  them by their ansisters.

---

285





• What the cause of their removal and the circumstancies attending
  their peregrination.

• With what savage nations have they formed stricte allyance, or
  those of offensive and Defensive war

• Have they any Monuments to perpetuate national events or the
  memory of a distinguished Chief—and if so what are they?

5″th Agriculture and Domestic economy

• do they obtain by the Cultivation of the Soil their principal
  mantainence?

• what species of grain or pulse do they cultivate?

• what are their implements of husbandry, and in what manner do
  they use them?

• have they any domestic anamals & what are they?

• do their men engage in agriculture or any other domestic employments.

• How do they prepare their culinary and other domistic utensils,
  and what are they?

• At what time do they usually relinquish their hunt and return to
  their Village?

• * What are the esculent plants, and how do they prepare them

• * What are those that are Commonly used by them?

• In what form and of what materials are their Lodges or Houses
  usially built

• Of what does the furniture of those lodges Consist, for the accommodation
  of the necessary avocations of human life eating
  Drinking & Sleeping

• What materials compose, and in what form do they erect their
  temperary tents

• do more that [than] one family inhabit the same lodge and in such
  case, is the furniture of the lodge considered as the common
  property of the inhabitants of it.

6″th Fishing & Hunting

• do those furnish their principal employment?

• do their [tear in MS. probably the word is women] participate in
  the fatigues of either?

• How do they persue, and how take their game?

• What are the employments used for those purposes, how prepare
  [d] & in what manner do they use them?

• How do they preserve, and how prepare the Skins & furs of their
  games when taken for raiment or for Market.

---

286

7″th War

• What is the cerimony of declareing war, and making peace; or
  forming alliancies?

• What the cerimony of setting out and the return of the War
  Party?

• do their women ever accompany them on those th[e]ir hostile
  experditions.

• at what season of the year do they usially go to war?

• In what manner are those War parties organized?

• What is their Disipline and die regulations by which they are
  governed?

• do they burn or torture their prisoners?

• do they eat the flesh of their prisoners?

• do they ever adopt their Prisoners as Members of their Nation?

• What are their implements of war, how do they prepare and how
  use them?

8″th Amusements.

• Have they any and what are they?

• do they with a view to amusement only make a feest

• do they play at any games of risk, & what are they?

• Have their women any games particularly to themselves, or do
  they ever engage in those common to the Men

• do they ever dance and what is the cerimony of their Dance

• Have they any music, and what are their musical instruments

9″th Clothing Dress & Orniments

• What garments do their dress usially Consist, in both Sexes?

• What are the Shapes & Materials of those garments?

• In what manner are they Worn?

• What orniments do they use to decorate their person?

• do they use paints of Various Colours on the surface of their
  Skins, and what are the most usial Colours thus used?

• do they tattoe (or scarify) their bodys and on what parts?

• do they imprint with the aids of a sharp pointed instrument and
  some colouring matter any figures on their Skins, and what are
  the part of the body on which they are usially imprinted.

• Which are the usial figures?

Customs & Manners Generally

• In what 'particularly do they differ from those nations in our
  neighbourhood.

---

287





• Have they any & what are their festivals or feasts

• What is the cerimony of reciving a Stranger at their Village?

• When publickly recived at the Lodge of the Chief of the Village
  is there any Cerimony afterwards necessary to your admission
  in any other Lodge

Any information of the Indians of Louisiania so far as you may be
inabled, at your Leasure dureing this winter either from Materials which
may be in your possession, or Such as you may have it in your power to
acquire would be most sinceerly acknowledged by me; the Interest you
feel for the extention of General science would I have no doubt more
than any other consideration form your inducement to comply with this
request, and