CHAP. XXI. INDIAN BRUTALITY. 11 



tuid black stripes, according to each man's fancy and 

 taste ; their clothing was made of the beaver, bear, or fox 

 skins ; they wore no covering on the head, and their long 

 black and greasy hair hung low over their shoulders ; 

 they were armed with bow and arrows, a shield, and a 

 lance. 



When Paul le Jeune arrived at Tadousac, 170 miles 

 below Quebec, he found a war-party of Montagnais, who 

 had just returned from an expedition against the Iroquois 

 or Mohawks with three prisoners. Entering the lodge 

 of the chief, whicli was constructed of birch-bark, sup- 

 ported on poles, and sufficiently long to hold three fires 

 five or six feet apart, he was an eye-witness to the bru- 

 tal ceremonies which are practised by all known races 

 of North American Indians when their prisoners are 

 brought into camp — ceremonies so revolting as to call 

 from the Jesuit father the following expressive sentence : — 



' In short, they make them suffer everything that 

 cruelty and tlie devil could put in their minds.' 



Of their wars with the Mohawks to the west, and the 

 Esquimaux to the east, between 250 and 300 j^ears ago, 

 there not only remain traditions, but the names of many 

 places in the Labrador Peninsula are derived from bloody 

 battles with their bold and cruel western enemies, or the 

 stolid and progressive Esquimaux. 



By Gabriel Sagard (1636), the first historian of the 

 great Huron nation, the Montagnais were represented as 

 the lowest order of the Indian races then known to 

 Europeans in the valley of the St. Lawrence ; the Hurons 

 occupied the highest position, living in fortified villages 

 between Lake Huron and Ontario. The Algonkins 



