250 THE IROQUOIS. [1642. 



tormentors. The stoicism of one of the wdrriors 

 enraged his captors beyond measure. " Scream ! 

 why don't you scream '? " they cried, thrusting their 

 burning brands at his naked body. " Look at me," 

 he answered; "you cannot make me wince. If you 

 were in my place, you would screech like babies." 

 At this they fell upon him with redoubled fury, 

 till their knives and firebrands left in him no 

 semblance of humanity. He was defiant to the 

 last, and when death came to his relief, they tore 

 out his heart and devoured it ; then hacked him 

 in pieces, and made their feast of triumph on his 

 mangled limbs. ^ 



All the men and all the old women of the party 

 were put to death in a similar manner, though but 

 few displayed the same amazing fortitude. The 

 younger women, of whom there were about thirty, 

 after passing their ordeal of torture, were permitted 

 to live ; and, disfigured as they were, were distributed 

 among the several villages, as concubines or slaves 

 to the Iroquois warriors. Of this number were the 

 narrator and her companion, who, being ordered to 

 accompany a war-party and carry their provisions, 

 escaped at night into the forest, and reached Three 

 Rivers, as we have seen. 



1 The diabolical practices described above were not peculiar to the 

 Iroquois. The Neutrals and other kindred tribes were no whit less cruel. 

 It is a remark of Mr. Gallatin, and I think a just one, that the Indians 

 west of the Mississippi are less ferocious than those east of it. The burn- 

 ing of prisoners is rare among the prairie tribes, but is not unknown. An 

 Ogillallah chief, in whose lodge I lived for several weeks in 1846, 

 described to me, with most expressive pantomime, how he had captm-ed 

 and burned a warrior of the Snake Tribe, in a valley of the Medicine Bow 

 Mountains, near which we were then encamped. 



