Maturin Le Petit (1693–1739) was a Jesuit

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 deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

sent among the Choctaws in 1726 and to observe the

Natchez Natchez may refer to: Places * Natchez, Alabama, United States * Natchez, Indiana, United States * Natchez, Louisiana, United States * Natchez, Mississippi, a city in southwestern Mississippi, United States * Grand Village of the Natchez, a site o ...

in 1730 in an area of what became part of

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

. He was also in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

. 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 , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ver ...

(''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