BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAE SCIENCES 385 



As usual the answer was deferred until the next day, when 

 the council met again. First the leading sachem welcomed the 

 French party to their country and in witness gave a wampum 

 belt. A second belt assured peace with the French, and promised 

 a slave as soon as one had returned from Albany, whither some 

 had gone with a trading party. 



For a week La Salle's party awaited the return of the ex- 

 pected guide and during that time they had ample opportunity 

 to become acquainted with the customs of their Seneca hosts. 

 They were fed upon dog, singed over the fire to remove the 

 hair, and roasted, together with corn meal served with bear's 

 grease and sunflower oil, from platters which were extremely 

 filthy. Drunkenness they noticed and noted with anxiety that 

 a drunken man was not accounted responsible for any of his acts, 

 even murder being committed safely by anyone really or sup- 

 posedly intoxicated. 



They had an excellent opportunity also to observe the tor- 

 ture of a captive, and incidentally to learn the value of a Seneca 

 promise. A young captive, eighteen or twenty years old, of a 

 southern tribe, had been given to an old woman in place of her 

 son who had been killed. She had refused to adopt him, and as usual 

 in such cases, he was to be tortured. To obtain him as a guide 

 Galinee offered presents to the woman in an effort to buy him, 

 and failing, tried to persuade the sachems to keep their promise 

 and give him as a guide but nothing could change them. 



The day was one of anxiety for the French party. Disap- 

 pointed and chagrined by their failure to obtain a guide, they 

 were now exposed to the actual danger of attack during the ex- 

 citement of the occasion by infuriated Senecas, all more or less 

 under the influence of rum. For safety, La Salle sent his men to 

 a small village half a league from the large one, and went in com- 

 pany of Galinee to the shore of the lake, presumably Ironde- 

 quoit. Some of his men were curious to see a prisoner tortured 

 and stayed in the village. 



The young captive was first tied to a scaffold, where the tor- 

 ture was begun by applying red hot gunbarrels to his feet and 

 body, continuing until the skin of his entire body had been 

 burned. He was then removed from the scaffold and forced to 

 run the gauntlet between two rows of Indians armed with burn- 

 ing brands. When he fell, buckets of hot coals were thrown 

 upon him. Finally he was killed with a stone, and his flesh dis- 



