French observers were particularly struck by the arbitrary executions of Natchez subjects, the property confiscations and the way in which, at royal funerals, court retainers would – often, apparently, quite willingly – offer themselves up to be strangled to accompany the Great Sun and his closest family members in death. Those sacrificed on such occasions consisted largely of people who were, up to that point, immediately responsible for the king’s care and his physical needs – including his wives, who were invariably commoners (the Natchez were matrilineal, so it was the White Woman’s
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