The Indians knew how to make rain without the rain tree and how to make the north wind blow to dry up the weather when necessary. I have seen it work time after time. It is a secret given by the Great Spirit for their use, but they were warned never to abuse it nor use it to harm your fellow men. But such rituals cannot and will not be revealed to the Indians of today. They are too well integrated with the white man and his ways. It may not work for them, so let it die out like so many rituals have. Like an old Indian chief once said, “The campfire is dying out, the hunt is almost over.” But what will happen to the songs and the folklore? They will soon die out also. Everything an Indian does is done in a circle because all things are round. The moon, the stars, the sun, the sky, the world is round. So he must also do everything in a circle. The sun rises and circles overhead until it disappears and returns to do the same thing again. So does the moon. The stars do the same thing. Their homes were built in circles. Their lives were lived in a circle from birth to death to birth after death. The extremely beautiful creation of the Chitimacha Indians is amazingly similar to the Biblical Genesis. The animal was created before man. So in this Divine Origin, they have a certain proximity to the Great Spirit himself which serves the same function as revealed scriptures in other religions. There are intermediators or links between man and the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit comes to the Indian vision involving animal forms. One old Indian, the last we know of, received his spiritual power from visions of a wolf and when he died in the house where an Indian still lives, a pack of wolves came and ran around the house several times and then left never to return as far as we know. We as Indians have lost the communication with the Great Spirit. Then we still have a very small bird that lives with the Indians, and it peeps things Indians understand. It tells when someone is coming, when it is going to rain, and many other things only an Indian understands. No Indian was allowed to harm this little bird. Indians see signs from all the wild animals—have some trait—an Indian notices them very close, thinking they are the love of the Great Spirit. Since he created them first, we regard all created beings as sacred and important for everything. This is the way it was told to me many years ago. So be it. [Illustration: Three members of a Chitimacha family. Pictured left to right are Felicia Mora Darden, Ernest Jack Darden, and Emma Darden Bernard. (M.R. Harrington, 1908. Photo courtesy of Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation)] HISTORY OF THE CHITIMACHA INDIANS I will try to write here what I know of the Chitimacha Indians as I know it and what I heard from the old people.