FROM DE SOTO TO LA SALLE
continued

Through the interpreter, Father Marquette explained his mission and gave the Quapaws a sermon on God and the Catholic faith. The Quapaws probably did not understand what he was trying to do and Christianity was not clear to them. But whatever, the Quapaws then held a feast of sagamity (corn and beans) and dog flesh and danced the calumet peace dance. The explorers, encouraged by the hospitality exhibited by the Quapaw, later went on down to Tongigua where they heard of Osotouy and Tourima up the Arkansas. But they found out the Mississippi did not flow to the great South Sea, but the Gulf of Mexico. The Quapaws warned them of unfriendly Indians to the South, with whom the Quapaw had been fighting for several years - the Tunica, for instance. They also warned them of monsters in the river, referring to alligators, probably. Father Marquette and Joliet, discouraged by this news, decided to return to Lake Michigan. They raised a cross, celebrated Mass, claimed the lands for God and the King of France and returned up the river, leaving the land of the Quapaw on July 17, 1673.

Father Marquette and Joliet were in the land of the Quapaw less than two weeks. But the reports they brought back to Ste. Ignace and Montreal convinced the French authorities that the Mississippi existed and France had a valid claim. Now Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle enters the picture.