ABORIGINAL USE OE WOOD IN NEW YORK 1 31 



a differing spear : " They strike them with long slender shafts 10 

 or 20 feet long, pointed at the end with iron, see the shape. The 

 2 splints of wood .spreading each side, directs the point into the 

 fish, which at a great depth it would be otherwise difficult to hit." 

 Bartram, p.47 



In this the splints expanded towards the point, instead of con- 

 tracting, the object of their use being somewhat different, but this 

 is but a modification of the early idea, fully described only in Canada 



and New York. 



Warlike usages 



Running the gauntlet was a captive's customary trial among 

 eastern Indians. He had to pass through two long lines of men, 

 women and children, who inflicted blows as they were passed. 

 Thorn branches were favorites for this, but there was a long array of 

 other things. At the end of this the early Iroquois had a peculiar 

 custom. That all might see the better, a bark scaffold was erected 

 in every town, where prisoners were placed. In large camps a 

 temporary structure was made. Other nations may not have used 

 these. The Mohawks called this askwa, and several terms belonged 

 to it. Gaskontaraton was to put the barks on it, in preparation 

 for the torture; askwaweron was to take the prisoner from it. It 

 was also called ennisera, or a high place. 



The Jesuit Relations have the fullest accounts of these. Father 

 Bressani was placed on one in a Mohawk camp in 1644. It was 

 6 feet high, and on it he had to sing and be tortured for several 

 days. In the Mohawk towns he was placed on others. When 

 Jogues and his friends were taken there in 1642, they ran the gaunt- 

 let. " Afterward they made them mount, entirely naked, a prepared 

 scaffold, which is at the entry of the town." Relation, 1644 



This location of the scaffold is in an account of the sufferings 

 of Jogues by others. He himself placed it elsewhere after describ- 

 ing their painful entrance : " It was with great difficulty, under this 

 hail of blows, that we reached the scaffold erected for us in the 

 center of the village, our bodies all livid, and our faces streaming 

 with blood." Relation, 1647 



