422 INDIANS. 



against the wall, their arms stretched out, and the hands 

 held open and in position while the nails were driven 

 through the palms into the wall. 



After being scalped, their breasts cut off, and other- 

 wise namelessly mutilated, they were left to suffer and 

 to die. 



Enough is on official record of the horrors of the Min- 

 nesota massacre to take from this story even an appearance 

 of improbability. 



Cruelty is both an amusement and a study. So much 

 pleasure is derived from it, that an Indian is constantly 

 thinking out new devices of torture, and how to prolong 

 to the utmost those already known. His anatomical 

 knowledge of the most sensitive portions of the human 

 frame is wonderfully accurate ; and the amount of beating, 

 cutting, slashing, and burning he will make a human body 

 undergo without seriously affecting the vital powers is 

 astonishing. When there is time for the indulgence of 

 the pastime, no wounded man falls into his power but 

 becomes at once a subject for experiment. The bodies 

 of enemies are almost always terribly mutilated ; but it is 

 not generally difficult to tell, from the nature of the muti- 

 lation, whether the body fell into their hands before or 

 after death. 



If the body is pierced with many bullet holes or 

 arrows, or cut and slashed with deep and careless gashes, 

 the spirit had passed before the Indian got possession. 

 But artistic dissections, partial flayings, dislocations, break- 

 ing and splitting of fingers and toes, indicate that the poor 

 fellow went to his long home with all the accompaniments 

 of pain and horror that these devils can devise. 



It is a rather curious fact that, while I have heard of 

 but one or two instances of Indians committing suicide, 

 they have a sort of respect for that act in the whites. 

 In one instance, to my personal knowledge, the horse of 

 a gallant fellow fell, pinning him to the ground unhurt, 

 but surrounded by a crowd of yelling, grinning Apaches. 



