Maturin Le Petit (1693–1739) was a

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

sent among the

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

s in 1726 and to observe the Natchez in 1730 in an area of what became part of

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

. He was also in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

. He wrote of the Natchez that, "The sun is the principal object of veneration to these people" and that "they cannot conceive of anything which can be above this heavenly body." The French were fascinated by accounts of the Natchez as they had been ruled by their own Sun King,

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

(''le Roi Soleil'').Man's rise to civilization: the cultural ascent of the Indians of North America Peter Farb Dutton, Mar 9, 1978 314 pages

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Le Petit, Maturin 1693 births 1739 deaths Jesuit history in North America 18th-century French Jesuits Native American history of Mississippi French Roman Catholic missionaries Jesuit missionaries in New France