The expression * sun-worship ' must, then, be understood to
imply an adoration of all fire, symbolized by the sun.
The Muskhogean tribes, according to tradition, were origin-
ally banded in one common confederacy, and unanimously
located their earliest ancestry near an artificial eminence in the
Valley of the Big Black River in the Natchez country, whence
they believed they had emerged. Gregg states ^ that they
described this to him and another traveller, and calls it "an
elevation of earth, about half a mile square, and fifteen or
twenty feet high. From its north-east corner a wall of equal
height extends for nearly half a mile to the high land."^ This
eminence they designated Nunne Chaha, or Nunne Hamgeh,
' the High Hill,' or ' the Bending Hill,' known to the Muskhogees
as Rvne em mekko, or * King of Mountains.' This looks as if
the Choctaws alluded to some of those immense artificial
mounds so common in the Mississippi valley. When De Soto
passed through the Gulf State country in 1540-41, the tribes



' Comme7-c€ of the Prairies^ vol. ii, p. 235.
^ Heart, Trayis. Am. Phil. Soi\, vol. iii, p. 216.
