90 



Inasmuch 



Torture 



1 he Aged 

 Abandoned 



one of these little ones to death, by first turning 

 him for a short time close before a fire, when they 

 cut off one of his arms, and told him to run; and 

 afterwards cruelly tortured him, with the other 

 children, till he died. 



&quot;It is almost incredible the torture to which 

 they will sometimes put their prisoners; and the 

 adult captives will endure it without a tear or a 

 groan. In spite of all their sufferings which the 

 love of cruelty and revenge can invent and in 

 flict upon them, they continue to chaunt their 

 death song with a firm voice; considering that to 

 die like a man, courting pain rather than flinching 

 from it, is the noblest triumph of the warrior. 

 In going to war, some time ago, a Sioux chief cut 

 a piece of flesh from his thigh, and holding it up 

 with a view to animate and encourage the party 

 who were to accompany him to the ferocious 

 conflict, told them to see how little he regarded 

 pain, and that, despising torture and the scalping 

 knife and tomahawk of their enemies, they should 

 rush upon them, and pursue them till they were 

 exterminated; and thereby console the spirits of 

 the dead whom they had slain. 



&quot;Sometimes the aged and infirm are abandoned 

 or destroyed; and, however, shocking it may be 

 to those sentiments of tenderness and affection, 

 which in civilized life we regard as inherent in 

 our common nature, it is practised by savages 

 in their hardships and extreme difficutly of pro 

 curing subsistence for the parties who suffer, 

 without being considered as an act of cruelty, 



