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II.

ment. An influence still more predominant attached to CHAPTER the courage, strength, and stratagem of the eminent warrior. But this influence, in either case, rather resembled that of party leaders among us than the definite authority of legal magistrates. Though individual Indians often stood in great awe of their chiefs, there seems to have been no means of coercing a reluctant minority. If a war party was proposed, it consisted wholly of volunteers; only those went who chose, or who had confidence in the chiefs offering to lead; and so it was in all other matters requiring co-operation.

There was, however, a third source of influence far more effective, and the foundation, often, of a highly despotic authority, obtained by those who possessed the talent and the cast of mind to work upon the superstitious imaginations of their fellows. The Indians, like all rude They believed most de

men, were very superstitious.
voutly in dreams, revelations, omens, charms. They as-
cribed an invisible guardian spirit to every man, every
animal, every natural object. They were addicted to
religious fastings and lonely meditations; they subject-
ed themselves to severe penances in hopes to propitiate
the invisible powers, or to produce that morbid excite-
ment of fancy which they mistook for vision or inspira-
tion. The ordinary priests or pow-wows, more recently
known as "medicine men," the leaders of the Indians in
their superstitious devotions, professed also the art of
healing; and to the cure of fevers and other diseases by
herbs and vapor baths, in which they possessed some lit-
tle skill, they added incantations and ceremonies to drive
away the spirits regarded as the causes of all violent dis-
orders, and, indeed, of all phenomena of which some other
explanation was not immediately obvious. In the pos-
sibility of communicating with the world of spirits, and

II.

CHAPTER of employing its agency in human affairs, the Indians were firm believers; and enthusiastic and artful individuals, by assuming the character of inspired prophets and workers of miracles, often obtained implicit reverence, and almost absolute authority.

It thus happened that different communities presented great differences in apparent forms of government. Some tribes seemed the slaves of a spiritual despotism; others resembled a limited monarchy; others an oligarchy governed by two or three powerful chiefs; and others yet a democracy, in which all the warriors stood nearly upon a level. The character of chief was often hereditary, and was sometimes exercised even by women. But the ideas of the Indians on the subject of descent differed from those of Europe. The heir was not the chief's own son, but the son of his sister-a usage universal throughout America, wherever hereditary descent was in vogue. Birth, however, was of little avail when other qualifications were wanting. The title of chief might remain, but the influence passed into other hands.

The hunting grounds and territory of the Indians appertained not to the chiefs nor to individuals, but to the tribe or confederacy. Yet their notions of individual property were clear and exact. Each Indian had a wellestablished right in the wigwam he had built, in the growing corn he had planted, in the game he had killed, and in all movable goods, the produce of his industry or skill. But the idea of accumulation hardly existed; and where there was so little property, violations of its rights were not apt to be frequent. The Indians were generous, because they were thoughtless and careless of the future. Those who had food were always ready to share it with the hungry. The chiefs especially kept open house, and in that way maintained their popularity.

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There was no division of labor; each family did every CHAPTER thing for itself. Buying and selling between members of the same village seem to have been almost unknown. Even between different tribes the exchange of commodities was very limited. In a few articles only, of which the possession or production was peculiar to certain confederacies, an incipient commerce seems to have existed. The tribes along the sea-coast were found, by the earliest navigators, in possession of plates and ornaments of copper. These articles naturally suggested the idea of mines in the neighborhood, but they seem to have been derived by barter from the distant and unknown shores of Lake Superior. Some of the tribes on the coast manufactured, in their turn, ornamental beads from pieces of seashells; and these beads, wrought into belts, were diffused, by exchange, through the distant interior. Peculiar kinds of clay and stone, fit for pipes and other implements, seem also to have been articles of traffic.

In all cases of violations of his rights, whether of person or property, each Indian relied, in the first place, on his own strength for protection. That failing, he applied to his chief, who thus acted occasionally the part of judge, and, indeed, of executioner, inflicting with his own hand the sentences he decreed; sometimes blows, and sometimes death. If the culprit were formidable, some trusty warrior was deputed to take him off by a sudden stroke. It was, indeed, the necessity of protection that led each Indian to attach himself to some chief, and each petty chief to some superior one; and when protection was refused or injuries inflicted, they did not hesitate to transfer themselves to some abler or juster leader. The chiefs, therefore, though guilty of occasional violences, found it necessary to study popularity, and to maintain a reputation for disinterestedness and justice.

CHAPTER

II.

In cases of homicide, the relations of the slain were es teemed bound to avenge his death, though sometimes, through the interference of the chiefs or of mutual friends, they were persuaded to accept a ransom. This principle of vengeance, being extended to the intercourse of neighboring confederacies, led to a series of retaliations ending in furious and hereditary hatreds, and leading often to perpetual wars.

War, indeed, was esteemed among the Indians, as it has been among communities far more civilized, the most honorable, glorious, and worthy of employments. The rank, or comparative estimation of the chiefs, greatly depended on the number of enemies they had slain in battle. This warlike spirit was little, or not at all, stimulated by hopes of conquest or plunder. It was the fury of hatred and revenge, the restless spirit of enterprise, still more, the desire of honor and distinction, that stirred up the warriors to deeds of blood. On their return from a successful expedition, they expected to be met and escorted back to the village amid the plaudits of the women and children, bearing with them the captives taken, and the scalps of the slain stretched on poles-obscure rudiments of what the Romans called a triumph.

In their primitive state, pitched battles or general engagements were unknown among the Indians. Surprise was the great point of their tactics. As the warriors were obliged to carry their provisions on their backs, or to support themselves by hunting, their war parties were seldom numerous. Yet their ardor was great. To reach some distant hostile village, they crossed mountains, swam rivers, and endured the utmost extremities of hunger and fatigue. But, though capable of momentary ef forts of great vigor, these children of impulse had not the pertinacity, nor perseverance, nor fixed purposes of civil

ized life.

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Bursts of passionate activity were followed by CHAPTER long intervals of indolence. Until they learned of the white man to make war on a larger scale, it was the utmost ambition of their warriors to steal into the enemy's country, to take a few scalps, and to make a few prisoners with the least possible loss to themselves; after which they long remained quiet, unless excited by some retaliatory inroad or some fortuitous encounter.

In the first fury of a successful attack, the women and children of the hostile village were sometimes indiscriminately massacred; but, in general, their lives were spared, and they were received by adoption into the families of their captors. The hostile warrior, if taken prisoner, was reserved for a horrid death, being tortured with all the ingenuity of savage hatred, and burned at the stake by a slow fire. The women and children joined in these torments, and the flesh of the victim was sometimes eaten. Such, at least, was the custom of the Iroquois, the most warlike and ferocious of all the North American tribes; but there is little trace of such cruel practices among the Indians of the Atlantic coast. It was a point of honor with the dying warrior to endure these torments without the slightest flinching or indication of pain, shouting out his death-song from among the flames, and taunting with his latest breath the unskillfulness of his tormentors. Yet even in the midst of these horrors humanity sometimes regained dominion. Among the torturing crowd some one saw, or thought he saw, in the unhappy victim of hate, a resemblance to some relative who had perished in battle. Claimed to supply the place of that relative, the prisoner was adopted on the spot as son or brother, and was expected to evince his gratitude and to ratify his adoption by forgetting forever his native tribe and all his former connections.

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