'
"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez; for a mighty chief,
worthy of the race of their Suns, has been born to them in thee, my
son--a noble chief with a beard on his chin. Listen to the explanation
of this prodigy. In days of old a Natchez maid of the race of their
Suns was on a visit to the Mobelians. There she soon loved the youthful
chief of that nation, and her wedding-day was nigh, when there came
from the big Salt Lake on the south a host of bearded men, who sacked
the town, slew the red chief with their thunder, and one of those
accursed evil spirits used violence to the maid when her lover's corpse
was hardly cold in death. She found in sorrow her way back to the
Natchez hills, where she became a mother, and lo! the boy had a beard
on his chin, and when he grew old enough to understand his mother's
words she whispered in his ear:
"'Son of the chiefs of the Beard,
Born from a bloody day,
Bloody be thy hand, and bloody be thy life
Until thy black beard with blood becomes red.'
"Let there be joy in the hearts of the Natchez. In my first ancestor a
long line of the first of hunters, chiefs, and warriors of the race of
their Suns had been born to them with beards on their chins.
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