L 



S22 lawson'b history 



they take the top of the skull along with it ; all 

 which they preserve and carefully keep by them, 

 for a trophy of their conquest over their enemies. 

 Others keep their enemies teeth which are taken 

 in war, whilst others split the pitch pine into splin- 

 ters, and stick them into the prisoner's body yet 

 alive. Thus they light them which burn like so 

 many torches ; and in this manner they make 

 him dance round a great fire, every one buffeting 

 and deriding him, till he expires, when every one 

 strives to get a bone or some relic of this unfor- 

 tuate captive. One of the young fellows that has 

 been at the wars, and has had the fortune to take 

 a captive, returns the proudest creature on earth, 

 and sets such a value on himself, that he knows 

 not how to contain himself in his senses. The 

 Iroquois, or Sinnagars, are the most war-like In- 

 dians that we know of, being always at war, and 

 not to be persuaded from that way of living by 

 any argument that can be used. If you go to 

 persuade them to live peaceably with the Tuskeru- 

 ros, and let them be one people, and in case 

 those Indians desire it and will submit to them, 

 they will answer you that they cannot live with- 

 out war, which they have ever been used to; 

 and that if peace be made with the Indians they 

 now war withal, they must find out some others 

 to wage war against ; for, for them to live in peace 

 is to live out of their element, war, conquest, and 

 murder, being what they delight in, and value 

 themselves for. When they take a slave and in- 



