throne where he would hold court surrounded by his wives, retainers, and advisers who were all dressed in white garments woven from mulberry bark. Included among the advisors were the lesser chiefs, headmen, and councillors who oversaw the other villages. Great Temple The Taensa temple compares with similar descriptions recorded by artist Alexandre de Batz of the main temple at the contemporaneous Grand Village of the Natchez. Like the Natchez temple, it was situated on a low platform mound flanking the plaza., but unlike the Natchez temple it was surrounded with a palisade of sharpened stakes decorated with human skulls taken during wars with their enemies. Inside the palisade was a large dome-shaped structure over in circumference. At the peak of the roof were three red, yellow, and white painted wooden eagle effigies. The bird carvings faced east toward the rising sun. Woven cane mats covered the structure's outer walls and roof, and the temple was painted red. A guardian lived in a small shed that stood near the door. Chroniclers describe the inside of the temple as having shelves holding oval-shaped split-cane baskets that were beautifully woven and painted. Inside were interred the bones of their chiefs and other honored dead, human and animal forms carved in stone, wood, and modeled as ceramic figurines, stuffed owls, jawbones of large fish, "heads and tails of extraordinary serpents", pieces of quartz crystal, and some European glass objects. There was also an altar decorated with a rope of human scalplocks. A ceremonial eternal fire representing the Sun was kept burning inside the building using an arrangement of three large hickory logs that were kept at a low burn and only slowly pushed into the fire. It was tended and guarded by two priests and other attendants who had a duty to make sure it was never extinguished. Except for the immediate relatives of the chief, all women and commoners were forbidden to enter the temple. Food offerings for their gods and the honored dead were frequently brought to the temple. Religion Taensa religious life revolved around the worship of the sun, represented by the sacred fire kept perpetually burning inside their temple. Their elite class of hereditary royalty were known as suns and like the Natchez they believed their chief, whose official name was Yak-stalchil (Great Sun), was matrilineally descended from the sun through his mother the "Grande Soleille" (French for "female