Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1899 — BURIED IN THE SEA. [ARTICLE]

BURIED IN THE SEA.

A Mlaalaoippi Legend Describing tbe Death of the Pascagoula Indiana. “Did you ever hear of the Pascagoula Indians?” asked the man from Mississippi. “Northerners do not seem to know that old legeml, but any darkey in Southern Mississippi could tell it to yon, and I’ve always thought it was worth a great poem or a great picture. Tbe Pascagoulas were a brave, intelligent tribe, who absolutely defied conquest and civilization. I don’t know where they came from originally, but they were steadily driven southward, retreating step by step before the whites and disputing every inch of the way. Several times they settled down and thought they would be left in peace, but each time they had to don their war paint again and were pushed further south. They came into Mississippi and stayed for a while, then were driven on find finally reached the sen. “They could go no further, and they knew that their enemies were advancing toward them. Their braves were great warriors, but they didn’t wish to die in battle and leave their wives and children and the old men and women bebiud them. There was no chance of victory for them, for they had found the whites invincible So the chiefs met in council and deliberated for one long day. When night came they had decided what should be done. The next morning every member of the tribe put on his finest garments and adorned himself royally. They performed tbe funeral rites of their people. Then they all went down to the beach and, joining hands, men, women and children stretched themselves in a long line along tbe smooth sand. They waited until the sun set, and then, chanting the death song of the Pascagoulas, they danced solemnly down to the beach and out into the sea, until the breakers dashed over them and the undertow swept them away. Not one of the tribe came back to the shore alive.

“I won’t swear that the story is true, hut they believe it down on the Pascagoula River, and 1 was born there. My grandfather’s plantation lies along the river and the sea, just where the weird death scene occurred, and I knew the story when I was a baby. At certain seasons there is a wild, doleful moaning to be heard along the beach, from sunset until morning. It isn't the ordinary moan of the sea, but a most mournful, unearthly noise. Some of my grandfather’s friends had a scientific explanation for it. but the negroes said it was the death wail of the Pascagoulas.”