They commonly begin with the adulterer, because of the two, he is the more capable of making his escape: they generally attack him at night, by surprise, lest he should make a desperate resistance, and blood be shed to cry for blood. They fall on eager and merciless, whooping their revengeful noise, and thrashing their captive, with their long-knobbed hoop-flails; some over his head and face; others on his shoulders and back. His belly, sides, legs, and arms, are gashed all over, and at last, he happily seems to be insensible of pain: then they cut off his ears[[XXXI]].
[XXXI]. Among these Indians, the trading people’s ears are often in danger, by the sharpness of this law, and their suborning false witnesses, or admitting foolish children as legal evidence; but generally either the tender-hearted females or friends, give them timely notice of their danger. Then they fall to the rum-keg,—and as soon as they find the pursuers approaching, they stand to arms in a threatning parade. Formerly, the traders like so many British tars, kept them in proper awe, and consequently prevented them from attempting any mischief. But since the patenteed race of Daublers set foot in their land, they have gradually become worse every year, murdering valuable innocent British subjects at pleasure: and when they go down, they receive presents as a tribute of fear, for which these Indians upbraid, and threaten us. The Muskohge lately clipt off the ears of two white men for supposed adultery. One had been a disciple of Black Beard, the pirate; and the other, at the time of going under the hands of those Jewish clippers, was deputed by the whimsical war-governor of Georgia, to awe the traders into an obedience of his despotic power. His successor lost his life on the Chikkasah war-path, twenty miles above the Koosah, or uppermost western town of the Muskohge, in an attempt to arrest the traders; which should not by any means be undertaken in the Indian country.
They observe, however, a gradation of punishment, according to the criminality of the adulteress. For the first breach of the marriage faith, they crop her ears and hair, if the husband is spiteful: either of those badges proclaim her to be a whore, or Hakse Kaneha, “such as were evil in Canaan,” for the hair of their head is their ornament: when loose it commonly reaches below their back; and when tied, it stands below the crown of the head, about four inches long, and two broad. As the {144} offender cuts a comical figure among the rest of the women, by being trimmed so sharp, she always keeps her dark winter hot house, till by keeping the hair moistened with grease, it grows so long as to bear tying. Then she accustoms herself to the light by degrees; and soon some worthless fellow, according to their standard, buys her for his And; which term hath been already explained.
The adulterer’s ears are slashed off close to his head, for the first act of adultery, because he is the chief in fault. If the criminals repeat the crime with any other married persons, their noses and upper lips are cut off. But the third crime of the like nature, is attended with more danger; for their law says, that for public heinous crimes, satisfaction should be made visible to the people, and adequate to the injuries of the virtuous,—to set their aggrieved hearts at ease, and prevent others from following such a dangerous crooked copy. As they will not comply with their mitigated law of adultery, nor be terrified, nor shamed from their ill course of life; that the one may not frighten and abuse their wives, nor the other seduce their husbands and be a lasting plague and shame to the whole society, they are ordered by their ruling magi and war-chieftains, to be shot to death, which is accordingly executed: but this seldom happens.
When I asked the Chikkasah the reason of the inequality of their marriage-law, in punishing the weaker passive party, and exempting the stronger, contrary to reason and justice; they told me, it had been so a considerable time—because their land being a continual seat of war, and the lurking enemy for ever pelting them without, and the women decoying them within, if they put such old cross laws of marriage in force, all their beloved brisk warriors would soon be spoiled, and their habitations turned to a wild waste. It is remarkable, that the ancient Egyptians cut off the ears and nose of the adulteress; and the prophet alludes to this sort of punishment, Ezek. xxiii. 25. “They shall deal furiously with thee: they shall take away thy nose and thine ears.” And they gave them also a thousand stripes, with canes on the buttocks[[XXXII]]. The Cheerake are an exception to all civilized or savage nations, in having no laws against adultery; they {145} have been a considerable while under petticoat-government, and allow their women full liberty to plant their brows with horns as oft as they please, without fear of punishment. On this account their marriages are ill observed, and of a short continuance; like the Amazons, they divorce their fighting bed-fellows at their pleasure, and fail not to execute their authority, when their fancy directs them to a more agreeable choice. However, once in my time a number of warriors, belonging to the family of the husband of the adulteress, revenged the injury committed by her, in her own way; for they said, as she loved a great many men, instead of a husband, justice told them to gratify her longing desire—wherefore, by the information of their spies, they followed her into the woods a little way from the town, (as decency required) and then stretched her on the ground, with her hands tied to a stake, and her feet also extended, where upwards of fifty of them lay with her, having a blanket for a covering. The Choktah observe the same savage custom with adulteresses. They term their female delinquents, Ahowwe Ishto; the first is a Cheerake word, signifying, “a deer.”—And through contempts of the Chikkasah, they altered their penal law of adultery.
[XXXII]. When human laws were first made, they commanded that if the husband found the adulterer in the fact, he should kill them both. Thus the laws of Solon and Draco ordained: but the law of the twelve tables softened it.
The Muskohge Indians, either through the view of mitigating their law against adultery, that it might be adapted to their patriarchal-like government; or by misunderstanding the Mosaic precept, from length of time, and uncertainty of oral tradition, oblige the adulteress under the penalty of the severest law not to be free with any man, (unless she is inclined to favour her fellow sufferer) during the space of four moons, after the broken moon in which they suffered for each other, according to the custom of the Maldivians. But her husband exposes himself to the utmost severity of the marriage law, if he is known to hold a familiar intercourse with her after the time of her punishment.
Argument XIV.
Many other of the Indian Punishments, resemble those of the Jews. Whosoever attentively views the features of the Indian, and his eye, and {146} reflects on his fickle, obstinate, and cruel disposition, will naturally think on the Jews. English America, feelingly knows the parity of the temper of their neighbouring Indians, with that of the Hebrew nation.
The Israelites cut off the hands and feet of murderers, 2 Sam. iv. 12.—strangled false prophets—and sometimes burned, stoned, or beheaded those malefactors who were condemned by the two courts of judgment. The Indians either by the defect of tradition, or through a greedy desire of revenge, torture their prisoners and devoted captives, with a mixture of all those Jewish capital punishments. They keep the original so close in their eye, as to pour cold water on the sufferers when they are fainting, or overcome by the fiery torture—to refresh, and enable them to undergo longer tortures. The Hebrews gave wine mixt with the juice of myrrh, to their tortured criminals, to revive their spirits; and sometimes vinegar to prevent too great an effusion of blood, lest they should be disappointed in glutting their greedy eyes, with their favourite tragedy of blood: which was eminently exemplified in their insulting treatment of Christ on the cross.