As to their treatment of prisoners, see Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, II, p. 260.
Note 51, page [75].
Smith thus locates their town: “The Sasquesahannocks inhabit vpon the cheefe spring of these foure branches of the Bayes head, one day’s journey higher than our barge could passe for rocks,” vol. I, p. 182. Campanius thus describes their town, which he represents as twelve miles from New Sweden: “They live on a high mountain, very steep and difficult to climb; there they have a fort or square building, surrounded with palisades. There they have guns and small iron cannon, with which they shoot and defend themselves, and take with them when they go to war.”—Campanius’s Nye Sverige, p. 181; Du Ponceau’s translation, p. 158. A view of a Sasquesahannock town is given in Montanus, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (1671), p. 136, based evidently on Smith. De Lisle’s Map, dated June, 1718, lays down Canoge, Fort des Indiens Andastés ou Susquehanocs at about 40° N.; but I find the name nowhere else.
Note 52, page [77].
Scalping was practiced by the Scythians. (Herodotus, book IV, and in the second book of Macchabees, VII, 4, 7). Antiochus is said to have caused two of the seven Macchabee brothers to be scalped. “The skin of the head with the hairs being drawn off.” The torture of prisoners as here described originated with the Iroquois, and spread to nearly all the North American tribes. It was this that led the Algonquins to give the Iroquois tribes the names Magoué, Nadoué or Nottaway, which signified cruel. Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, II, p. 287.
Note 53, page [78].
The remarks here as to religion are vague. The Iroquois and Hurons recognized Aireskoi or Agreskoe, as the great deity, styling him also Teharonhiawagon. As to the Hurons, see Sagard, Histoire du Canada, p. 485. The sacrifice of a child, as noted by Alsop, was unknown in the other tribes of this race, and is not mentioned by Campanius in regard to this one. {124}
Note 54, page [78].
The priests were the medicine men in all probability; no author mentioning any class that can be regarded properly as priests.