The French Indians are said not to have deflowered any of our young women they captivated, while at war with us;[[68]] and unless the black tribe, the French Canadian priests, corrupted their traditions, they would think such actions defiling, and what must bring fatal consequences on their own heads. We have an attested narrative of an English prisoner, who made his escape from the Shawanoh Indians, which was printed at Philadelphia, anno 1757, by which we were assured, that even that blood-thirsty villain, Capt. Jacob, did not attempt the virtue of his female captives, lest (as he told one of them) it should offend the Indian’s God; though at the same time his pleasures heightened in proportion to the shrieks and groans of our people of different ages and both sexes, while they were under his tortures.
Although the Choktah are libidinous, and lose their customs apace, yet I have known them to take several female prisoners without offering the least violence to their virtue, till the time of purgation was expired;—then some of them forced their captives, notwithstanding their pressing entreaties and tears. As the aforesaid Shawanoh renegado professed himself so observant of this law of purity, so the other northern nations of Indians, who are free from adulteration by their far-distance from foreigners, do not neglect so great a duty: and it is highly probable, notwithstanding the silence of our writers, that as purity was strictly observed by the Hebrews in the temple, field and wilderness, the religious rites and customs of the northern Indians, differ no farther from those of the nations near our southern settlements than reason will admit, allowing for their distant situation from Peru and Mexico, whence they seem to have travelled.
When they return home victorious over the enemy, they sing the triumphal song to Yo-He-Wah, ascribing the victory to him, according to a religious custom of the Israelites, who were commanded always to attribute their success in war to Jehovah, and not to their swords and arrows.
In the year 1765,[[69]] when the Chikkasah returned with two French scalps, from the Illinois, (while the British troops were on the Missisippi, about 170 leagues below the Illinois) as my trading house was near the Chikkasah {164} leader, I had a good opportunity of observing his conduct, as far as it was exposed to public view.[[70]]
Within a day’s march of home, he sent a runner a-head with the glad tidings—and to order his dark winter house to be swept out very clean, for fear of pollution. By ancient custom, when the out-standing party set off for war, the women are so afraid of the power of their holy things, and of prophaning them, that they sweep the house and earth quite clean, place the sweepings in a heap behind the door, leaving it there undisturbed, till Opáe, who carries the ark, orders them by a faithful messenger to remove it. He likewise orders them to carry out every utensil which the women had used during his absence, for fear of incurring evil by pollution. The party appeared next day painted red and black, their heads covered all over with swan-down, and a tuft of long white feathers fixt to the crown of their heads. Thus they approached, carrying each of the scalps on a branch of the ever-green pine[[XXXIX]], singing the awful death song, with a solemn striking air, and sometimes Yo He Wah; now and then sounding the shrill death Whóo Whoop Whoop. When they arrived, the leader went a-head of his company, round his winter hot house, contrary to the course of the sun, singing the monosyllable YO, for about the space of five seconds on a tenor key; again, He He short, on a bass key; then Wah Wah, gutturally on the treble, very shrill, but not so short as the bass note. In this manner they repeated those sacred notes, YO, He He, Wah Wah, three times, while they were finishing the circle, a strong emblem of the eternity of Him, “who is, was, and is to come,” to whom they sung their triumphal song, ascribing the victory over their enemies to his strong arm, instead of their own, according to the usage of the Israelites by divine appointment. The duplication of the middle and last syllables of the four-lettered essential name of the deity, and the change of the key from their established method of invoking YO He Wah, when they are drinking their bitter drink, (the Cusseena) in their temples, where they always spend a long breath on each of the two first {165} syllables of that awful divine song, seems designed to prevent a prophanation.
[XXXIX]. As the Indians carry their enemies scalps on small branches of evergreen pine, and wave the martial trophies on a pine-branch before YO He Wah; I cannot help thinking that the pine was the emblematical tree so often mentioned in divine writ, by the plural name, Shittim; especially as the mountain Cedar, comparatively speaking, is low and does not seem to answer the description of the inspired writers; besides that כפר Chepher is figuratively applied to the mercy-seat, signifying, literally, a screen, or cover against storms; which was pitched over with the gum of the pine-tree.
The leader’s Hetissu, “or waiter,” placed a couple of new blocks of wood near the war pole, opposite to the door of the circular hot-house, in the middle of which the fire-place stood; and on these blocks he rested the supposed sacred ark, so that it and the holy fire faced each other. The party were silent a considerable time. At length, the chieftain bade them sit down, and then enquired whether his house was prepared for the solemn occasion, according to his order the day before: being answered in the affirmative, they soon rose up, sounded the death whoop, and walked round the war pole; during which they invoked and sung three times, YO, He He, Wah Wah, in the manner already described. Then they went with their holy things in regular order into the hot-house, where they continued, exclusive of the first broken day, three days and nights apart from the rest of the people, purifying themselves with warm lotions, and aspersions of the emblematical button-snake-root, without any other subsistence between the rising and the setting of the sun.
During the other part of the time, the female relations of each of the company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves in their finest, stood in two rows, one on each side of the door, facing each other, from the evening till the morning, singing Ha Ha, Ha He, with a soft shrill voice and a solemn moving air for more than a minute, and then paused about ten minutes, before they renewed their triumphal song. While they sung, they gave their legs a small motion, by the strong working of their muscles, without seeming to bend their joints. When they had no occasion to retire, they have stood erect in the same place, a long frosty night; and except when singing, observed a most profound silence the whole time. During that period, they have no intercourse with their husbands; and they avoided several other supposed pollutions, as not to eat or touch salt, and the like.
The leader, once in two or three hours came out at the head of his company, and raising the death whoop, made one circle round the red painted war pole, holding up in their right hands the small boughs of pine with the scalps fixt to them, singing as above, waving them to and fro, and then returned again. This religious order they strictly observed the whole time {166} they were purifying themselves, and singing the song of safety, and victory, to the goodness and power of the divine essence. When the time of their purification and thanksgiving expired, the men and women went and bathed themselves separately, returned in the same manner, and anointed again, according to their usual custom.
They joined soon after in a solemn procession, to fix the scalps on the tops of the houses of their relations who had been killed without revenge of blood. The war chieftain went first—his religious attendant followed him; the warriors next, according to their rising merit; and the songstresses brought up the rear. In this order they went round the leader’s winter-house from the east to the north, the men striking up the death whoop, and singing the death song; and then YO, He He, Wah Wah, as described; the women also warbling Ha Ha, Ha He, so that one might have said according to the sacred text, “great was the company of the women who sung the song of triumph.”[[XL]] Then they fixed on the top of the house, a twig of the pine they had brought with them, with a small piece of one of the scalps fastened to it: and this order they observed from house to house, till in their opinion they had appeased the ghosts of their dead. They went and bathed again; and thus ended their purification, and triumphal solemnity—only the leader and his religious waiter kept apart three days longer, purifying themselves. I afterward asked the reason of this—they replied they were Ishtohoolo. This seems to be so plain a copy of the old Jewish customs, I am satisfied the reader will easily discern the analogy, without any farther observations.