uable kind from our commiffioners; for they never confider a treaty as of any weight, unless every article in it be ratified by fuch a gratification.

It often happens, that those different tribes or nations, scattered as they are at an immenfe distance from one another, meet in their excurfions after prey. If their fubfifts no animofity between them, which feldom is the cafe, they behave in the most friendly and courteous manner; but if they happen to be in a state of war, or if there has been no previous intercourse between them, all who are not friends are deemed enemies, and they fight with the most favage fury.

War, if we except hunting, is the only employment of the men; as to every other concern, and even the little agriculture they enjoy, it is left to the women. Their most common motive for entering into war, when it does not arise from an accidental rencounter or interference, is either to revenge themselves for the death of fome loft friends, or to acquire prifoners, who may affift them in their hunting, and whom they adopt into their fociety. These wars are either undertaken by fome private adventurers, or at the inftance of the whole community. In the latter cafe, all the young men who are difpofed to go out to battle (for no one is compelled contrary to his inclination), give a bit of wood to the chief, as a token of their defign to accompany him; for every thing among thofe people is tranfacted with a great deal of ceremony and many forms. The chief who is to conduct them fasts several days, during which he converses with no one, and is particularly careful to obferve his dreams; which the prefumption natural to favages generally renders as favourable as he could defire. A variety of other fuperftitions and ceremonies are obferved. One of the most hideous is fetting the war-kettle on the fire, as an emblem that they are going out to devour their enemies; which among fome nations must formerly have been the cafe, fince they ftill continue to exprefs it in clear terms, and ufe an emblem fignificant of the ancient ufage. Then they dispatch a porcelane, or large fhell, to their allies, inviting them to come along, and drink the blood of their enemies. They think that those in their alliance muft not only adopt their enmities, but have their resentment wound up to the fame pitch with themselves. And indeed no people carry their friendship or their refentment fo far as they do; and this is what fhould be expected from their peculiar circumstances: that prineiple in human natnre which is the fpring of the focial affections, acts with fo much the greater force the more it is restrained. The Ameri eans, who live in fmall focieties, who fee few objects and few perfons, become wonderfully attached to thofe objects and perfons, and cannot No. II.

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be deprived of them without feeling themfeives miferable. Their ideas are too confined to enable them to entertain just sentiments of humanity, or univerfal benevolence. But this very circumftance, while it makes them cruel and favage to an incredible degree towards those with whom they are at war, adds a new force to their particular friendships, and to the common tie which unites the members of the fame tribe, or of those different tribes which are in alliance with one another. Without attending to this reflection, fome facts we are going to relate would excite our wonder without informing our reafon, and we should be bewildered in a number of particulars, feemingly oppofite to one another, without being fenfible of the general caufe from which they proceed.

Having finished all the ceremonies previous to the war, and the day appointed for their fetting out on the expedition being arrived, they take leave of their friends, and exchange their clothes, or whatever moveables they have, in token of mutual friendship; after which they proceed from the town, their wives and female relations walking before, and attending them to fome distance. The warriors march all dreffed in their finest apparel and most showy ornaments, without any order. The chief walks flowly before them, finging the war-fong, while the reft obferve the most profound filence. When they come up to their women, they deliver them all their finery, and putting on their wort clothes, proceed on their expedition.

Every nation has its peculiar enfign or ftandard, which is generally fome beaft, bird, or fish. Thofe among the Five Nations are the bear, otter, wolf, tortoife, and eagle; and by these names the tribes are usually diftinguished. They have the figures of thofe animals pricked and painted on feveral parts of their bodies; and when they march through the woods, they commonly, at every encampment, cut the reprefentation of their enfign on trees, especially after a fuccefsful campaign: marking at the fame time the number of fcalps or prifoners they have taken. Their military drefs is extremely fingular. They cut off or pull out all their hair, except a fpot about the breadth of two English crown-pieces, near the top of their heads, and entirely deftroy their eye-brows. The lock left upon their heads is divided into feveral parcels, each of which is stiffened and adorned with wampum, beads, and feathers of various kinds, the whole being twifted into a form much refembling the modern pompoon. Their heads are painted red down to the eye-brows, and fprinkled over with white down. The griftles of their ears are split almoft quite round, and diftended with wires or splinters fo as to meet and tie together on the nape of the neck. Thefe are alfo hung with ornaments, and generally bear the reprefentation of fome bird or beaft.

Their nofes are likewife bored and hung with trinkets of beads, and their faces painted with various colours fo as to make an awful appearance. Their breafts are adorned with a gorget or medal, of brass, copper, or fome other metal; and that dreadful weapon the fcalpingknife hangs by a ftring from their neck.

The great qualities in an Indian war are vigilance and attention, to give and to avoid a furprise; and indeed in these they are fuperior to all nations in the world. Accustomed to continual wandering in the forefts, having their perceptions fharpened by keen neceffity, and living in every respect according to nature, their external fenfes have a degree of acuteness which at first view appears incredible. They can trace out their enemies at an immenfe diftance by the smoke of their fires, which they fmell, and by the tracks of their feet on the ground, imperceptible to an European eye, but which they can count and diftinguish with the utmost facility. They can even diftinguish the different nations with whom they are acquainted, and can determine the precife time when they paffed, where an European could not, with all his glaffes, diftinguish footsteps at all. Thefe circumstances, however, are of small importance, because their enemies are no lefs acquainted with them. When they go out, therefore, they take care to avoid making use of any thing by which they might run the danger of a difcovery. They light no fire to warm themselves or to prepare their victuals: they lie clofe to the ground all the day, and travel only in the night; and marching along in files, he that clofes the rear diligently covers with leaves the tracts of his own feet and of theirs who preceded him. When they halt to refresh themfelves, fcouts are fent out to reconnoitre the country and beat up every place where they fufpect an enemy to lie concealed. In this manner they enter unawares the villages of their foes; and while the flower of the nation are engaged in hunting, maffacre all the children, women, and helpless old men, or make prifoners of as many as they can manage, or have ftrength enough to be useful to their nation. But when the enemy is apprised of their defign, and coming on in arms against them, they throw themselves flat on the ground among the withered herbs and leaves, which their faces are painted to resemble. Then they allow a part to pass unmolested, when all at once, with a tremen dous fhout, rifing up from their ambush, they pour a form of musketbullets on their foes. The party attacked returns the fame cry. Every one fhelters himself with a tree, and returns the fire of the adverse party, as foon as they raise themselves from the ground to give a fecond fire. Thus does the battle continue until the one party is fo much weakened as to be incapable of farther refiftance. But if the force on

in

fide continues nearly equal, the fierce fpirits of the favages, inflamed by the lofs of their friends, can no longer be reftrained. They abandon their diftant war, they rush upon one another with clubs and hatchets in their hands, magnifying their own courage, and insulting their enemies with the bittereft reproaches. A cruel combat enfues, death appears a thousand hideous forms, which would congeal the blood of civilized nations to behold, but which roufe the fury of favages. They trample, they infult over the dead bodies, tearing the fcalp from the head, wallowing in their blood like wild beafts, and fometimes devouring their flesh. The flame rages on till it meets with no refistance; then the prifoners are fecured, those unhappy men, whofe fate is a thousand times more dreadful than theirs who have died in the field. The conquerors fet up a hideous howling to lament the friends they have loft. They approach in a melancholy and fevere gloom to their own village; a meffenger is fent to announce their arrival, and the women, with frightful fhrieks, come out to mourn their dead brothers or their husbands. When they are arrived, the chief relates in a low voice to the elders, a circumftantial account of every particular of the expedition. The orator proclaims aloud this account to the people; and as he mentions the names of those who have fallen, the fhrieks of the women are redoubled. men too join in the fe cries, according as each is most connected with the deceased by blood or friendship. The last ceremony is the proclamation of the victory; each individual then forgets his private misfortunes, and joins in the triumph of the nation; all tears are wiped from their eyes, and by an unaccountable tranfition, they pass in a moment from the bitterness of forrow to an extravagance of joy. But the treatment of the prisoners, whofe fate all this time remains undecided, is what chiefly characterises the favages.

The

We have already mentioned the strength of their affections or refent. ments. United as they are in fmall focieties, connected within themfelves by the firmeft ties, their friendly affections, which glow with the most intense warmth within the walls of their own village, seldom extend beyond them. They feel nothing for the enemies of their nation; and their refentment is eafily extended from the individual who has injured them to all others of the fame tribe. The prifoners, who have themselves the fame feelings, know the intentions of their conquerors, and are prepared for them. The perfon who has taken the captive at tends him to the cottage, where, according to the diftribution made by the elders, he is to be delivered to supply the loss of a citizen. If those who receive him have their family weakened by war or other accidents, they adopt the captive into the family, of which he becomes a member.

But

But if they have no occafion for him, or their refentment for the lofs of their friends be too high to endure the fight of any connected with those who were concerned in it, they fentence him to death. All thofe who have met with the fame fevere fentence being collected, the whole nation is affembled at the execution, as for fome great folemnity. A fcaffold is erected, and the prifoners are tied to the ftake, where they commence their death-fong, and prepare for the enfuing scene of cruelty with the most undaunted courage. Their enemies, on the other fide, are determined to put it to the proof, by the moft refined and exquifite tortures. They begin at the extremity of his body, and gradually ap proach the more vital parts. One plucks out his nails by the roots, one by one; another takes a finger into his mouth, and tears off the flesh with his teeth; a third thrusts the finger, mangled as it is, into the bowl of a pipe made red-hot, which he fmokes like tobacco; then they pound his toes and fingers to pieces between two stones; they cut circles about his joints, and gafhes in the fleshy parts of his limbs, which they fear immediately with red-hot irons, cutting, burning, and pinching them alternately they pull off this flesh, thus mangled and roasted, bit by bit, devouring it with greedinefs, and fmearing their faces with the blood in an enthusiasm of horror and fury. When they have thus torn off the feh, they twist the bare nerves and tendons about an iron, tearing and fnapping them, whilft others are employed in pulling and extending their limbs in every way that can increase the torment. This continues often five or fix hours; and sometimes, such is the ftrength of the favage, days together. Then they frequently unbind him, to give a breathing to their fury, and to think what new torments they shall inflict, and to refresh the ftrength of the fufferer, who, wearied out with such a variety of unheard-of torments, often falls into fo profound a fleep, that they are obliged to apply the fire to awake him, and renew his fufferings. He is again fastened to the stake, and again they renew their cruelty; they stick him all over with small matches of wood that easily takes fire, but burns flowly; they continually run fharp reeds into every part of his body; they drag out his teeth with pincers, and thruft out his eyes; and laftly, after having burned his flesh from the bones with Low fires; after having fo mangled the body that it is all but one wound; after having mutilated his face in fuch a manner as to carry nothing human in it; after having peeled the fkin from the head, and poured a heap of red-hot coals or boiling water on the naked skull— they once more unbind the wretch; who, blind, and staggering with pain and weakness, affaulted and pelted upon every fide with clubs and ftones, now up, now down, falling into their fires at every step, runs

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hither