CHAPTER VIII.
Boone being attacked by two Indians near the Blue Licks, kills them both—Is afterwards taken prisoner and marched to Old Chillicothe—Is adopted by the Indians—Indian ceremonies.
We return to the subject of our memoir, from which the reader may imagine we have wandered too long. He had already conducted the defence of Boonesborough, during two Indian sieges. The general estimate of his activity, vigilance, courage, and enterprise, was constantly rising. By the Indians he was regarded as the most formidable and intelligent captain of the Long-knife; and by the settlers and immigrants as a disinterested and heroic patriarch of the infant settlements. He often supplied destitute families gratuitously with game. He performed the duties of surveyor and spy, generally as a volunteer, and without compensation. When immigrant families were approaching the country, he often went out to meet them and conduct them to the settlements. Such, in general, were the paternal feelings of the pioneers of this young colony.
The country was easily and amply supplied with meat from the chase, and with vegetables from the fertility of the soil. The hardy settlers could train themselves without difficulty to dispense with many things which habit and long use in the old settlements had led them to consider as necessaries. But to every form of civilized communities salt is an indispensable article. The settlement of Boonesborough had been fixed near a lick, with a view to the supply of that article. But the amount was found to be very inadequate to the growing demand. The settlement deemed it necessary to send out a company to select a place where the whole country could be supplied with that article at a reasonable rate.
Captain Boone was deputed by the settlers to this service. He selected thirty associates, and set out on the first of January, 1779, for the Blue Licks, on Licking river, a well known stream emptying into the Ohio, opposite where Cincinnati now stands. They arrived at the place, and successfully commenced their operations. Boone, instead of taking a part in the diurnal and uninterrupted labor, of evaporating the water, performed the more congenial duty of hunting to keep the company in provisions, while they labored. In this pursuit he had one day wandered some distance from the bank of the river. Two Indians, armed with muskets,—for they had now generally added these efficient weapons to their tomahawks—came upon him. His first thought was to retreat. But he discovered from their nimbleness, that this was impossible. His second thought was resistance, and he slipped behind a tree to await their coming within rifle shot. He then exposed himself so as to attract their aim. The foremost levelled his musket. Boone, who could dodge the flash, at the pulling of the trigger, dropped behind his tree unhurt. His next object W&B to cause the fire of the Second musket to be thrown away in the same manner. He again exposed a part of his person. The eager Indian instantly fired, and Boone evaded the shot as before. Both the Indians, having thrown away their fire, were eagerly striving, but with trembling hands, to reload. Trepidation and too much haste retarded their object. Boone drew his rifle and one of them fell dead. The two antagonists, now on equal grounds, the one unsheathing his knife, and the other poising his tomahawk, rushed toward the dead body of the fallen Indian. Boone, placing his foot on the dead body, dexterously received the well aimed tomahawk of his powerful enemy on the barrel of his rifle, thus preventing his skull from being cloven by it. In the very attitude of firing the Indian had exposed his body to the knife of Boone, who plunged it in his body to the hilt. This is the achievement commemorated in sculpture over the southern door of the Rotunda in the Capitol at Washington.
This adventure did not deter him from exposing himself in a similar way again. He was once more hunting for the salt makers, when, on the seventh day of February following, he came in view of a body of one hundred and two Indians, evidently on their march to the assault of Boonesborough—that being a particular mark for Indian revenge. They were in want of a prisoner, from whom to obtain intelligence, and Boone was the person of all others whom they desired. He fled; but among so many warriors, it proved, that some were swifter of foot than himself, and these overtook him and made him prisoner.
By a tedious and circuitous march they brought him back to the Blue Licks, and took their measures with so much caution, as to make twenty-seven of the thirty salt makers prisoners. Boone obtained for them a capitulation, which stipulated, that their lives should be spared, and that they should be kindly treated. The fortunate three, that escaped, had just been sent home with the salt that had been made during their ill-fated expedition.
The Indians were faithful to the stipulations of the capitulation; and treated their prisoners with as much kindness both on their way, and after their arrival at Chillicothe, as their habits and means would admit. The march was rapid and fatiguing, occupying three days of weather unusually cold and inclement.
The captivity of twenty-eight of the select and bravest of the Kentucky settlers, without the hope of liberation or exchange, was a severe blow to the infant settlement. Had the Indians, after this achievement, immediately marched against Boonesborough, so materially diminished in its means of defence, they might either have taken the place by surprise, or, availing themselves of the influence which the possession of these prisoners gave them over the fears and affections of the inmates, might have procured a capitulation of the fort. Following up this plan in progression, the weaker station would have followed the example of Boonesborough; since it is hardly supposable, that the united influence of fear, example, and the menace of the massacre of so many prisoners would not have procured the surrender of all the rest. But, though on various occasions they manifested the keenest observation, and the acutest quickness of instinctive cunning—though their plans were generally predicated on the soundest reason, they showed in this, and in all cases, a want of the combination of thought, and the abstract and extended views of the whites on such occasions. For a single effort, nothing could be imagined wiser than their views. For a combination made up of a number of elements of calculation, they had no reasoning powers at all.
Owing to this want of capacity for combined operations of thought, and their, habitual intoxication of excitement, on the issue of carrying some important enterprise without loss, they hurried home with their prisoners, leaving the voice of lamentation and the sentiment of extreme dejection among the bereaved inmates of Boonesborough.
Throwing all the recorded incidents and circumstances of the life of Boone, during his captivity among them, together, we shall reserve them for another place, and proceed here to record what befell him among the whites.
He resided as a captive among the Indians until the following March. At that time, he, and ten of the persons who were taken with him at the Blue Licks, were conducted by forty Indians to Detroit, where the party arrived on the thirteenth of the month. The ten men were put into the hands of Governor Hamilton, who, to his infinite credit, treated them with kindness. For each of these they received a moderate ransom. Such was their respect, and even affection for the hunter of Kentucky, and such, perhaps, their estimate of his capability of annoying them, that although Governor Hamilton offered them the large sum of a hundred pounds sterling for his ransom, they utterly refused to part with him. It may easily be imagined, in what a vexatious predicament this circumstance placed him; a circumstance so much the more embarrassing, as he could not express his solicitude for deliverance, without alarming the jealousy and ill feeling of the Indians. Struck with his appearance and development of character, several English gentlemen, generously impressed with a sense of his painful position, offered him a sum of money adequate to the supply of his necessities. Unwilling to accept such favors from the enemies of his country, he refused their kindness, alleging a motive at once conciliating and magnanimous, that it would probably never be in his power to repay them. It will be necessary to contemplate his desolate and forlorn condition, haggard, and without any adequate clothing in that inclement climate, destitute of money or means, and at the same time to realize that these men, who so generously offered him money, were in league with those that were waging war against the United States, fully to appreciate the patriotism and magnanimity of this refusal. It is very probable, too, that these men acted from the interested motive of wishing to bind the hands of this stern border warrior from any further annoyance to them and their red allies, by motives of gratitude and a sense of obligation.
It must have been mortifying to his spirit to leave his captive associates in comfortable habitations and among a civilized people at Detroit, while he, the single white man of the company, was obliged to accompany his red masters through the forest in a long and painful journey of fifteen days, at the close of which he found himself again at Old Chillicothe, as the town was called.
This town was inhabited by the Shawnese, and Boone was placed in a most severe school, in which to learn Indian modes and ceremonies, by being himself the subject of them. On the return of the party that led him to their home, he learned that some superstitious scruple induced them to halt at mid-day when near their village, in order to solemnize their return by entering their town in the evening. A runner was despatched from their halting place to instruct the chief and the village touching the material incidents of their expedition.
Before the expedition made the triumphal entry into their village, they clad their white prisoner in a new dress, of material and fashion like theirs. They proceeded to shave his head and skewer his hair after their own fashion, and then rouged him with a plentiful smearing of vermilion and put into his hand a white staff, gorgeously tasselated with the tails of deer. The war-captain or leader of the expedition gave as many yells as they had taken prisoners and scalps. This operated as effectually as ringing a tocsin, to assemble the whole village round the camp. As soon as the warriors from the village appeared, four young warriors from the camp, the two first carrying each a calumet, approached the prisoner, chanting a song as they went, and taking him by the arm, led him in triumph to the cabin, where he was to remain until the announcement of his doom. The resident in this cabin, by their immemorial usage, had the power of determining his fate, whether to be tortured and burnt at the stake, or adopted into the tribe.
The present occupant of the cabin happened to be a woman, who had lost a son during the war. It is very probable that she was favorably impressed towards him by noting his fine person, and his firm and cheerful visage—circumstances which impress the women of the red people still more strongly than the men. She contemplated him stedfastly for some time, and sympathy and humanity triumphed, and she declared that she adopted him in place of the son she had lost. The two young men, who bore the calumet, instantly unpinioned his hands, treating him with kindness and respect. Food was brought him, and he was informed that he was considered as a son, and she, who had adopted him, as his mother. He was soon made aware, by demonstrations that could not be dissembled or mistaken, that he was actually loved, and trusted, as if he really were, what his adoption purported to make him. In a few days he suffered no other penalty of captivity than inability to return to his family. He was sufficiently instructed in Indian customs to know well, that any discovered purpose or attempt to escape would be punished with instant death.
Strange caprice of inscrutable instincts and results of habit! A circumstance, apparently fortuitous and accidental, placed him in the midst of an Indian family, the female owner of which loved him with the most disinterested tenderness, and lavished upon him all the affectionate sentiments of a mother towards a son. Had the die of his lot been cast otherwise, all the inhabitants of the village would have raised the death song, and each individual would have been as fiercely unfeeling to torment him, as they were now covetous to show him kindness. It is astonishing to see, in their habits of this sort, no interval between friendship and kindness, and the most ingenious and unrelenting barbarity. Placed between two posts, and his arms and feet extended between them, nearly in the form of a person suffering crucifixion, he would have been burnt to death at a slow fire, while men, women, and children would have danced about him, occasionally applying torches and burning splinters to die most exquisitely sensible parts of the frame, prolonging his torture, and exulting in it with the demoniac exhilaration of gratified revenge.
This was the most common fate of prisoners of war at that time. Sometimes they fastened the victim to a single stake, built a fire of green wood about him, and then raising their yell of exultation, marched off into the desert, leaving him to expire unheeded and alone. At other times they killed their prisoners by amputating their limbs joint by joint. Others they destroyed by pouring on them, from time to time, streams of scalding water. At other times they have been seen to hang their victim to a sapling tree by the hands, bending it down until the wretched sufferer has seen himself swinging up and down at the play of the breeze, his feet often, within a foot of the ground. In a word, they seem to have exhausted the invention and ingenuity of all time and all countries in the horrid art of inflicting torture.
The mention of a circumstance equally extraordinary in the Indian character, may be recorded here. If the sufferer in these afflictions be an Indian, during the whole of his agony a strange rivalry passes between them which shall outdo each other, they inflicting, and he in enduring these tortures. Not a groan, not a sigh, not a distortion of countenance is allowed to escape him. He smokes, and looks even cheerful. He occasionally chants a strain of his war song. He vaunts his exploits performed in afflicting death and desolation in their villages. He enumerates the names of their relatives and friends that he has slain. He menaces them with the terrible revenge that his friends will inflict by way of retaliation. He even derides their ignorance in the art of tormenting; assures them that he had afflicted much more ingenious torture upon their people; and indicates more excruciating modes of inflicting pain, and more sensitive parts of the frame to which to apply them.
They are exceedingly dexterous in the horrid surgical operation of taking off the scalp—that is, a considerable surface of the hairy integument of the crown of the cranium. Terrible as the operation is, there are not wanting great numbers of cases of persons who have survived, and recovered from it. The scalps of enemies thus taken, even when not paid for, as has been too often the infamous custom of their white auxiliaries, claiming to be civilized, are valued as badges of family honor, and trophies of the bravery of the warrior. On certain days and occasions, young warriors take a new name, constituting a new claim to honor, according to the number of scalps they have taken, or the bravery and exploits of those from whom they were taken. This name they deem a sufficient compensation for every fatigue and danger. Another ludicrous superstition tends to inspire them with the most heroic sentiments. They believe that all the fame, intelligence, and bravery that appertained to the enemy they have slain is transferred to them, and thenceforward becomes their intellectual property. Hence, they are excited with the most earnest appetite to kill warriors of distinguished fame. This article of Indian faith affords an apt illustration of the ordinary influence of envy, which seems to inspire the person whom it torments with the persuasion, that all the merit it can contract from the envied becomes its own, and that the laurels shorn from another's brow will sprout on its own.
He witnessed also their modes of hardening their children to that prodigious power of unshrinking endurance, of which such astonishing effects have just been recorded. This may be fitly termed the Indian system of gymnastics. The bodies of the children of both sexes are inured to hardships by compelling them to endure prolonged fastings, and to bathe in the coldest water. A child of eight years, fasts half a day; and one of twelve, a whole day without food or drink. The face is blacked during the fast, and is washed immediately before eating. The male face is entirely blacked; that of the female only on the cheeks. The course is discontinued in the case of the male at eighteen, and of the female at fourteen. At eighteen, the boy is instructed by his parents that his education is completed, and that he is old enough to be a man. His face is then blacked for the last time, and he is removed at the distance of some miles from the village, and placed in a temporary cabin. He is there addressed by his parent or guardian to this purport: "My son, it has pleased the Great Spirit that you should live to see this day. We all have noted your conduct since I first blacked your face. They well understand whether you have strictly followed the advice I have given you, and they will conduct themselves towards you according to their knowledge. You must remain here until I, or some of your friends, come for you."
The party then returns, resumes his gun, and seeming to forget the sufferer, goes to his hunting as usual, and the son or ward is left to endure hunger as long as it can be endured, and the party survive. The hunter, meanwhile, has procured the materials for a feast, of which the friends are invited to partake They accompany the father or guardian to the unfortunate starving subject. He then accompanies them home, and is bathed in cold water, and his head shaved after the Indian fashion—all but a small space on the centre of the crown. He is then allowed to take food, which, however, as a consecrated thing, is presented him in a vessel distinct from that used by the rest. After he has eaten, he is presented with a looking-glass, and a bag of vermilion. He is then complimented for the firmness with which he has sustained his fasting, and is told that he is henceforward a man, and to be considered as such. The instance is not known of a boy eating or drinking while under this interdict of the blacked face. They are deterred, not only by the strong sentiments of Indian honor, but by a persuasion that the Great Spirit would severely punish such disobedience of parental authority.
The most honorable mode of marriage, and that generally pursued by the more distinguished warriors, is to assemble the friends and relatives, and consult with them in regard to the person whom it is expedient to marry. The choice being made, the relations of the young man collect such presents as they deem proper for the occasion, go to the parents of the woman selected, make known the wishes of their friend, deposit their presents, and return without waiting for an answer. The relations of the girl assemble and consult on the subject. If they confirm the choice, they also collect presents, dress her in her best clothes, and take her to the friends of the bridegroom who made the application for the match, when it is understood that the marriage is completed. She herself has still a negative; and if she disapprove the match, the presents from the friends of the young man are returned, and this is considered as a refusal. Many of the more northern nations, as the Dacotas, for example, have a custom, that, when the husband deceases, his widow immediately manifests the deepest mourning, by putting off all her finery, and dresses herself in the coarsest Indian attire, the sackcloth of Indian lamentation. Meanwhile she makes up a respectable sized bundle of her clothes into the form of a kind of doll-man, which represents her husband. With this she sleeps. To this she converses and relates the sorrows of her desolate heart. It would be indecorous for any warrior, while she is in this predicament, to show her any attentions of gallantry. She never puts on any habiliments but those of sadness and disfigurement. The only comfort she is permitted in this desolate state is, that her budgetted husband is permitted, when drams are passing, to be considered as a living one, and she is allowed to cheer her depressed spirits with a double dram, that of her budget-husband and her own. After a full year of this penance with the budget-husband, she is allowed to exchange it for a living one, if she can find him.
When an Indian party forms for private revenge the object is accomplished in the following manner. The Indian who seeks revenge, proposes his project to obtain it to some of his more intimate associates, and requests them to accompany him. When the requisite number is obtained, and the plan arranged it is kept a profound secret from all others, and the proposer of the plan is considered the leader. The party leaves the village secretly, and in the night. When they halt for the night, the eldest encamp in front, and the younger in the rear. The foremen hunt for the party, and perform the duty of spies. The latter cook, make the fires, mend the moccasins, and perform the other drudgery of the expedition.
Every war party has a small budget, called the war budget, which contains something belonging to each one of the party, generally representing some animal; for example, the skin of a snake, the tail of a buffalo, the skin of a martin, or the feathers of some extraordinary bird. This budget is considered a sacred deposit, and is carried by some person selected for the purpose, who marches in front, and leads the party against the enemy. When the party halts, the budget is deposited in front, and no person passes it without authority. No one, while such an exhibition is pending, is allowed to lay his pack on a log, converse about women or his home. When they encamp, the heart of whatever beast they have killed on the preceding day is cut into small pieces and burnt. No person is allowed, while it is burning, to step across the fire, but must go round it, and always in the direction of the sun.
When an attack is to be made, the war budget is opened, and each man takes out his budget, or totem, and attaches it to that part of his body which has been indicated by tradition from his ancestors. When the attack is commenced, the body of the fighter is painted, generally black, and is almost naked. After the action, each party returns his totem to the commander of the party, who carefully wraps them all up, and delivers them to the man who has taken the first prisoner or scalp; and he is entitled to the honor of leading the party home in triumph. The war budget is then hung in front of the door of the person who carried it on the march against the enemy, where it remains suspended thirty or forty days, and some one of the party often sings and dances round it.
One mode of Indian burial seems to have prevailed, not only among the Indians of the lakes and of the Ohio valley, but over all the western country. Some lay the dead body on the surface of the ground, make a crib or pen over it, and cover it with bark. Others lay the body in a grave, covering it first with bark, and then with earth. Others make a coffin out of the cloven section of trees, in the form of plank, and suspend it from the top of a tree. Nothing can be more affecting than to see a young mother hanging the coffin that contains the remains of her beloved child to the pendent branches of the flowering maple, and singing her lament over her love and hope, as it waves in the breeze.