34 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 190 



Sometimes the prisoners escaped, especially at night when they 

 were made to walk over the fires. As they ran over them, they scat- 

 tered the coals with their feet and kicked aside the brands, ashes, and 

 burning coals. This produced such a darkness from the ashes and 

 smoke that the people could not recognize one another and all were 

 forced out the door. The prisoner might get into the crowd and hence 

 flee. If he could not do this immediately, he hid in an out-of-the-way 

 corner until an opportunity came to escape (S 163) . 



In the morning, the prisoner was taken outside to the platform 

 where he was tortured again (JR 15: 173, 187; 17; 109; 18: 31) when 

 he was about to die (S 162). He was fastened to a stake on this 

 platform, and firebrands and glowing irons applied to his body again 

 (JR 17: 65). The people underneath the scaffold tlirust firebrands 

 through the open places (JR 17: 69). If he fainted, he was given 

 water to revive him. In one case, at least, they bit off pieces of his 

 ears and forced him to eat them ( JR 15 : 173) . While being tortured, 

 he was invited to sing, and he sang in order not to be thought a coward 

 (JR 18: 31; cf. JR 10: 227). His scalp might be removed (JR 17: 

 67; 18: 31; 29: 253) and preserved as a very precious object (JR 

 17: 67). *2 Finally, when he died, they cut off his head (JR 15 : 187; 

 17 : 71 ; S 162) . Then his belly was opened and all the little children 

 there got some small fragment of bowel, which they hung on the end 

 of a stick and carried in triumph through the village as a symbol 

 of victory (S 162). 



The following is an account of the torture of one prisoner. The 

 Huron had come upon 25 or 30 Iroquois fishing at the Lake of the 

 Iroquois [Lake Ontario]. They captured 8 and the rest fled. Of 

 the 8, they brought back to Huronia only 7; the other's head only was 

 kept. When they were beyond the reach of the enemy, the band 

 assembled and held a council. It was decided that 6 should be given 

 to the Attigneenonghac and the Arendahronon and the seventh to 

 the place where the Jesuits were [among the Attignawantan] ; the 

 prisoners were divided among these three nations since it was these 

 three that had composed the war party. "When the prisoners arrived 

 in Huronia, the old men, to whom the young men on returning from 

 war gave their spoils to be distributed, held another council to decide 

 on which villages the prisoners should be bestowed. It was custom- 

 ary to give a notable person who had lost one of his relatives in war 

 an enemy captive "to dry his tears" and to partly assuage his grief 

 (JR 13: 37-39). 



^'^Tien the Jesuits arrived at the village to which the prisoner was 

 being brought, they saw him coming from a distance, singing in the 

 midst of 30 or 40 Indians who were escorting him. He was di-essed 



*2 The scalp, either the entire scalp or a piece of It, was also regarded by many other 

 North American Indians as an object having supernatural power. 



