They reckon all those animals to be unclean, that are either carnivorous, or live on nasty food; as hogs,[49] wolves, panthers, foxes, cats, mice, rats. And if we except the bear, they deem all beasts of prey unhallowed, and polluted food; all amphibious quadrupeds they rank in the same class. Our old traders remember when they first began the custom of eating beavers: and to this day none eat of them, except those who kill {132} them; though the flesh is very wholesome, on account of the bark of trees they live upon. It must be acknowledged, they are all degenerating apace, insomuch, that the Choktah Indians, on account of their scantiness of ammunition while they traded with the French, took to eat horse-flesh, and even snakes of every kind; though each of these species, and every sort of reptiles, are accounted by the other neighbouring nations, impure food in the highest degree. And they ridicule the Choktah for their cannibal apostacy, and term them in common speech, “the evil, ugly, Choktah.” They abhor moles so exceedingly, that they will not allow their children even to touch them, for fear of hurting their eyesight; reckoning it contagious. They believe that nature is possest of such a property, as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the food they use, or of those objects that are presented to their senses;[50] he who feeds on venison, is according to their physical system, swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the clumsy bear, or helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy wallowing swine. This is the reason that several of their old men recommend, and say, that formerly their greatest chieftains observed a constant rule in their diet, and seldom ate of any animal of a gross quality, or heavy motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dullness through the whole system, and disabled them from exerting themselves with proper vigour in their martial, civil, and religious duties.