-92-

war-chief of the Creeks, left his home at Little Talassi, half a league above the ancient Fort Toulouse, at the head of two hundred young braves, to visit the legendary caves on Red river, from which the nation had issued in bygone times. They crossed the territories held by the Upper Cha'hta, passed through Mobile, the confluence of Iberville bayou with the Mississippi river, St. Bernard bay on the coast, and following a northern direction, finally reached a forest on Red river, about 150 leagues above its junction with the Mississippi river. They crossed these woods, which were situated on an eminence on the river side, and stood in face of the caves (cavernes), the objective point of the expedition.

    "The noise of a few gun-shots brought out of these spacious cavities a large number of bisons, wild oxen and wild horses, which ran, frightened as they were by the unusual explosions, head over heals, over precipices of more than eighty feet of perpendicular height into the slimy waters of Red river. The only description Milfort gives of these caves goes to show that there were several or many of them, situated in close vicinity to each other, and that those seen could easily contain fifteen to twenty thousand families. The party concluded to pass the inclement season in these grottoes, which they had reached about Christmas time.

   Here they hunted, fished and danced until the end of March, 1782, then started for the Missouri, and subsequently for home, well supplied with the product’s of their chase...”

   Pages 217-218 of the same book has the following:

   "Among the nations tracing their mythic origin to the earth, or what amounts to the same thing, to caves, deep holes, hills or mountains, are the Pomo of Northern California, who believe that their

ancestors, the coyote-men, were created directly