SWANTON] CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 217 
derer is condemned to die the death of a sinner, ‘ without anyone to mourn for 
him,’ as in the case of suicide, contrary to their usage toward the rest of their 
dead. ... 
“There never was any set of people who pursued the Mosaic law of retaliation 
with such a fixt eagerness as these Americans. They are so determined in 
this point that formerly a little boy shooting birds in the high and thick corn- 
fields unfortunately chanced slightly to wound another with his childish 
arrow; the young vindictive fox was excited by custom to watch his ways with 
the utmost earnestness till the wound was returned in as equal a manner as 
could be expected. Then ‘all was straight,’ according to their phrase. Their 
hearts were at rest by having executed that strong law of nature, and they 
sported together as before. ... They forgive all crimes at the annual atone- 
ment of sins, except murder, which is always punished with death. The 
Indians constantly upbraid us in their bacchanals for inattention to this 
maxim of theirs; they say that all nations of people who are not utterly sunk 
in cowardice take revenge of blood before they can have rest, cost what it will. 
The Indian Americans are more eager to revenge blood than any other people 
on the whole face of the earth... . 
“T have known the Indians to go a thousand miles for the purpose of revenge, 
in pathless woods, over hills and mountains, through large cane swamps full 
of grapevines and briars, over broad lakes, rapid rivers, and deep creeks; and 
all the way endangered by poisonous snakes, if not with the rambling and lurk- 
ing enemy, while at the same time they were exposed to the extremities of heat 
and cold, the vicissitude of the seasons, to hunger and thirst, both by chance 
and their religious scanty method of living when at war, to fatigues, and other 
difficulties. Such is their overboiling revengeful temper that they utterly con- 
demn all those things as imaginary trifles, if they are so happy as to get the 
scalp of the murderer or enemy to satisfy the supposed craving ghosts of 
their deceased relations. Though they imagine the report of guns will send 
off the ghosts of their kindred that died at home to their quiet place, yet they 
firmly believe that the spirits of those who are killed by the enemy, without 
equal revenge of blood, find no rest, and at night haunt the houses of the tribe 
to which they belonged; but when that kindred duty of retaliation is justly 
executed they immediately get ease and power to fly away. This opinion, and 
their method of burying and mourning for the dead, of which we shall speak 
presently, occasion them to retaliate in so earnest and fierce a manner... . 
When any casual thing draws them into a war it grows every year more spite- 
ful, till it advances to a bitter enmity so as to excite them to an implacable 
hatred to one another’s very national names. Then they must go abroad to 
spill the enemy’s blood and to revenge crying blood. We must also consider 
it is by scalps they get all their war titles which distinguish them among the 
brave; and these they hold in as high esteem as the most ambitious Roman 
general ever did a great triumph.” ™ 
The law of retaliation in cases of murder is thus concisely stated 
by Warren on the authority of Cyrus Harris: 
If a man or woman killed another, he or she was killed by the relatives of 
the slain. If the murderer could not be found, it was lawful to put to death 
the brother of the one who had done the killing, which made an end of the 
difficulty.” 
% Adair, Hist. Am. Inds., pp. 148-151. ™ Pubs. Miss. Hist. Soc., vol. vit, pp. 552-553. 
55231 °—28—_15 
