700 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BuLr.. 137 



but they never posted sentinels all night. Fires were extinguished, 

 however, so that they might not be detected. As in the case of the 

 other tribes, a bad omen or dream might send some or all of them 

 back home. They also carried a fetish or war m.edicine (Swanton, 

 1911, pp. 123-134). Charlevoix says of this: 



Their idols were exposed on a long pole leaning toward the enemy, and all the 

 warriors, before they lie down, pass one after another, with their war clubs in 

 their hands, before their pretended deities ; then they turn toward the enemies' 

 country, and make great threatenings, which the wind often carries another way. 

 (French, 1851, p. 167; Swanton, 1911, p. 123.) 



Le Petit's version of this, from the same original document, runs 

 thus: 



As the war chiefs always carry with them their idols, or what they call their 

 spirits, well secured in some skins, at night they suspend them from a small 

 pole painted red, which they erect in a slanting position, so that it may be bent 

 to the side of the enemy. The warriors, before they go to sleep, with war club 

 in hand, pass one after the other in a dance before these pretended spirits, at the 

 same time uttering the fiercest threats toward the side on which are their 

 enemies. (Thwaites, 1897-1901, vol. 68, pp. 145-149; Swanton, 1911, p. 125.) 



Attacks were usually made at daybreak, and there was the same 

 sensitiveness to losses of men that we have noted elsewhere. If the 

 Great Sun accompanied a war expedition and should happen to be 

 killed, the chiefs of the party and other leading warriors would be 

 put to death. If two war parties happened to meet, both would turn 

 back. In order to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy, 

 the friends of a man who had fallen far from home would remove his 

 scalp and bring it back. 



The engraved or painted sticks in the shape of war clubs which have 

 already been mentioned were left about the place where a successful 

 blow had been struck, bearing upon them the mark of the town from 

 which they came or the war leader. If no damage had been done, 

 they carved such designs on trees instead, and a small tree was split in 

 two and the ends bent over into half circles, one of which was painted 

 red and one black. If a cabin had been attacked, besides leaving the 

 clubs, they set up two arrows in the manner of a St. x\ndrew's cross. 



Captives were made to sing and dance for several days before the 

 temple and then they were delivered to the relatives of persons who 

 had been killed, from whom the warriors received some recompense. 

 The hair of female captives was cut short and the}^ were kept as slaves. 

 The men were stunned with blows of a club and scalped, unless a 

 woman redeemed such a captive to marry him. Afterward they were 

 fastened to a square frame of sticks, scorched in several places with 

 canes, and finally burned to death (pi. 83). One who had taken a 

 scalp for the first time must remain away from his wife and eat no 

 meat for the spare of 6 months, living mainly on fish and broth. 



