HURON CANNIBALISM. XXxix 



The men danced with great violence and gesticulation ; 

 the women, with a much more measured action. The 

 former were nearly divested of clothing, — in mystical 

 dances, sometimes wholly so ; and, from a superstitious 

 motive, this was now and then the case with the women. 

 Both, however, were abundantly decorated with paint, 

 oil, beads, wampum, trinkets, and feathers. 



Religious festivals, councils, the entertainment of an 

 envoy, the inauguration of a chief, were all occasions of 

 festivity, in which social pleasure was joined with mat- 

 ter of grave import, and which at times gathered nearly 

 all the nation into one great and harmonious concourse. 

 Warlike expeditions, too, were always preceded by feast- 

 ing, at which the warriors vaunted the fame of their an- 

 cestors, and their own past and prospective exploits. A 

 hideous scene of feasting followed the torture of a pris- 

 oner. Like the torture itself, it was, among the Hurons, 

 partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite. 

 If the victim had shown courage, the heart was first 

 roasted, cut into small pieces, and given to the young 

 men and boys, who devoured it to increase their own 

 courage. The body was then divided, thrown into the 

 kettles, and eaten by the assembly, the head being the 

 portion of the chief. Many of the Hurons joined in 

 the feast with reluctance and horror, while others took 

 pleasure in it.^ This was the only form of cannibal- 

 possible, in brief space, to indicate more than their general features. In 

 the famous " war-dance," — which was frequently danced, as it still is, 

 for amusement, — speeches, exhortations, jests, personal satire, and rep- 

 artee were commonly introduced as a part of the performance, some- 

 times by way of patriotic stimulus, sometimes for amusement. The 

 music in this case was the drum and the war-song. Some of the other 

 dances were also interspersed with speeches and sharp witticisms, always 

 taken in good part, though Lafitau says that he has seen the victim so 

 pitilessly bantered that he was forced to hide his head in his blanket. 



^ "U y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir." — Brebeuf, Relation det 



