298 
prisoners underwent barbarous tortures before death l)rought their 
sutferinj>;s to an end. The offensive weapons on both sides were 
clubs and bows and arrows; for tomahawks were not used, appar- 
ently, prior to contact with Europeans.^ Many warriors used slat 
armour and wicker shields, covered with rawhide to make them 
impenetrable to bone- or stone-pointed arrows; but they quickly 
abandoned this armour when it proved defenceless against the 
bullets of muzzle-loading guns. Neither confederacy had a really 
efheient military organization, although, unlike the Algonkians who 
had to fish and hunt at every stage of a campaign, they could employ 
their total man-power and escape many commissariat rlifficulties 
through the possession of corn, which gave them a portable food 
supply and could be cultivated and hai' vested by the women alone. 
Both Hurons and Iroquois, however, made the raising of levies not 
a national issue, but a matter for iiulividual “ captains,” who bought 
the services of volunteers with presents, outlined the objective and 
plan of attack, and, as far as they possessed the authority, disposed 
of any prisoners that were taken. Under such conditions it was 
im])ossible to cai ry out a co-ordinated campaign with separate bodies 
of troops, or even to establish discipline in a single war-party, where 
the individual w'arriors could drop out whenever they wished and 
incur no other penalty than a loss of public esteem. If lack of proper 
organization weakened their powers of attack, it lessened also their 
powers of defence, so that an early missionary could exclaim of the 
Hurons ( and the same was true of the Iroquois at that time) “ They 
take no precautions against surpi'ise, they are not careful to prepare 
arms or to enclose their villages with ]:»alisades; their usual recourse, 
especially when the enemy is powerful, is flight. 
The struggle between the two confederacies might have con- 
tinued indefinitely if the Iroquois had not acquired from the Dutch a 
far larger supply of firearms and ammunition than the Hurons could 
1 Jacques Cartier gives a word for hatchet iu his Uodiehigan vocabulary, but does not state that 
it was ever used in warfare. De Vries, speaking of the Moltawk a century later, say.s " The weapon.s 
in war were bow.s and arrow.s, stone axes and clap hanun(‘r.s ” (I)c X'^ries, David Pietersz: Voyages from 
Holland to America, A.D. 1632 to 1644, translated by Henry C. Murphy; Collections of the New York 
Hist. ,Soc., ser. 2, vol. iii, pt. 1, p. 95 (1852)). De Vb'ie.s may well be mi.staken, however, for the 
archaeological remains of the Iroquoians yield no stone tomaluiwk.s, unless indeed Ihe Indians some- 
times used in war the stone adzes coimnonly employed for felling tree.s. Abbe Maillarrl, an eighteenth 
century writer, describes the manufacture of stone tomahawks by the Micmac, but his description is 
not convineiiig (Maillard, A. S. : “Account of the Custoin.s and \Iaiiiiers of tlie Miemaokis and Man- 
cheets. Savage Nations Now Dependent on the Government of Cape Hreton,” p. 26 {London, 1758)). On 
the other hand, the Huron warrior in the ohl illustration on ji. 289 certainly carries a tomahawk, appar- 
ently of stone. The iron or sfeel-bladed tomahawks constantly mentioned in accounts of Indian uars 
originated, nf course, with the whites. 
- “ Jesuit Ilelations,'' v'ol. 10, p. 95. 
