Tooker] ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 29 



were found elsewhere, they would do them grievous harm (JK, 10: 

 229). 



Eveiy year rumors circulated among the Huron that the enemy 

 was raising an army, either to attack them while they were away 

 trading or as they were going down to Quebec. It was said that the 

 old and the influential men often authored these rumors in order 

 to keep a number of young men and those capable of bearing arms 

 m the villages and to prevent them from all leavmg at the same time 

 to do their trading ( JR 14 : 39) . 



Every year in the spring and summer, five or six hundred yomig 

 Huron men, or more, went to Iroquois territory and scattered there in 

 groups of five or six. There they lay flat on their bellies in the fields 

 and woods and along the main paths and at night prowled about and 

 even entered the villages to capture a man, woman, or child. If they 

 took them alive, they carried them back to their own country and 

 put them to death over a slow fire. Or, having clubbed them or shot 

 them to death with arrows, they carried off the heads. If too much 

 encumbered with these, they took the scalps with the hair on them 

 [which they called onontsira (S 153)], tanned them and put them 

 away for trophies. In time of war, the scalps were fastened to the 

 end of a long pole and set on the palisades or walls of their town (S 

 152-153). 



When they went to war, two or three of the older or more daring- 

 chiefs who midertook to lead them on this occasion went from vil- 

 lage to village to explain their plans, givmg presents in some of the 

 villages in order to persuade them and procure their aid and support 

 in the war. These chiefs had the authority not only to choose the 

 places to which to go, to assign quarters, and to form battalions, but 

 also to dispose of the prisoners taken and to settle everytliing else 

 of great consequence (C 159 ; S 151) . 



■In one case, a young man before going on the warpath, proposed 

 to give the war feast himself on the day of the general assembly and 

 to defray the expenses of all his comrades. The feast required six 

 large kettles with many large smoked fish, and meal and oil for basting 

 them — a large outlay for him and he was accordingly much praised 

 and honored. The kettles were put on the fire before daylight in 

 one of the largest houses in the village. When the council was over 

 and the votes for war taken, they all came to the feast, during which 

 they performed the same military exercises, one after another. Wlien 

 the kettles were empty and the compliments and acknowledgments 

 made, the Indians left to invade the enemy's country. There they 

 captured about 60 of the enemy, most of whom were killed on the 

 spot and the rest brought back alive, put to death, and then eaten at 

 a feast (S 151-152). 



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