Next day the party came in sight of the village, painted in alternate compartments of red and black, their heads enveloped in swan's down, and the centre of their crown, surmounted with long white feathers. They advanced, singing their war song, and bearing the scalps on a verdant branch of evergreen.
Arrived at the village, the chief who had led the party advanced before his warriors to his winter cabin, encircling it in an order of march contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war song after a particular mode, sometimes on the ten or and sometimes on the bass key, sometimes in high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural notes. The waiter, or servant of the leader, called Etissu, placed a couple of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular cabin, called the hot-house, in the centre of which was the council fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed among their most sacred things. While this was transacting the party were profoundly silent. The chief bade all set down, and then inquired whether his cabin was prepared and every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in concert and began the war-whoop, walking slowly round the war-pole as they sung. All the consecrated things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity, into the hot-house. Here they remained three whole days and nights, in separation from the rest of the people, applying warm ablutions to their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a decoction of snake root. During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves in their finest apparel, stood, in two lines opposite the door, and facing each other. This observance they kept up through the night, uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill voice for a minute; then intermitting it about ten minutes, and resuming it again. When not singing their silence was profound.
The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slightest interruption, during the whole three days' purification. To proceed with the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy." The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification three days longer, and the ceremony closed.
He observed, that when their war-parties returned from an expedition, and had arrived near their village, they followed their file leader, in what is called Indian file, one by one, each a few yards behind the other, to give the procession an appearance of greater length and dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in platoons, yelling, whooping, and insulting their prisoners, if they had made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in the centre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten their prisoners. They then advance to the house of their leader, remaining without, and standing round his red war-pole, until they determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If any prisoner should be fortunate enough to break from his pinions, and escape into the house of the chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it is an inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, the refugee is saved from the fire.
Captives far advanced in life, or such as had been known to have shed the blood of their tribe, were sure to atone for their decrepitude, or past activity in shedding blood, by being burnt to death. They readily know those Indians who have killed many, by the blue marks on their breasts and arms, which indicate the number they have slain. These hieroglyphics are to them as significant as our alphabetical characters. The ink with which these characters are impressed, is a sort of lampblack, prepared from the soot of burning pine, which they catch by causing it to pass through a sort of greased funnel. Having prepared this lampblack, they tattoo it into the skin, by punctures made with thorns or the teeth of fish. The young prisoners, if they seem capable of activity and service, and if they preserve an intrepid and unmoved countenance, are generally spared, unless condemned to death by the party, while undergoing the purification specified above. As soon as their case is so decided, they are tied to the stake, one at a time. A pair of bear-skin moccasins, with the hair outwards, are put on their feet. They are stripped naked to the loins, and are pinioned firmly to the stake.
Their subsequent punishment, in addition to the suffering of slow fire, is left to the women. Such are the influences of their training, that although the female nature, in all races of men, is generally found to be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this case they appear to surpass the men in the fury of their merciless rage, and the industrious ingenuity of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle of long, dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are attached splinters of burning pine. As the victim is led to the stake, the women and children begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their gratification by unremitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to an immediate close.
The signal for a more terrible infliction being given—the arms of the victim are pinioned, and he is disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine passed round his neck, allowing him a circle of about fifteen yards in circumference, in which he can he made to march round his pole. They knead tough clay on his head to secure the cranium from the effects of the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Under the excitement of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these cases; goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, kicking, biting, and stamping with inconceivable fury. The throng of women and children laugh, and fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it again. At other times the humor takes him to show them, that he can bear all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication of suffering. In this case, as we have seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and shows his contempt, by calling them by the most reproachful of all epithets—old women. When he falls insensible, they scalp and dismember him, and the remainder of his body is consumed.
We have omitted many of these revolting details, many of the atrocious features of this spectacle, as witnessed by Boone. While we read with indignation and horror, let us not forget that savages have not alone inflicted these detestable cruelties. Let us not forget that the professed followers of Jesus Christ have given examples of a barbarity equally unrelenting and horrible, in the form of religious persecution, and avowedly to glorify God.
During Boone's captivity among the Shawnese, they took prisoner a noted warrior of a western tribe, with which they were then at war. He was condemned to the stake with the usual solemnities. Having endured the preliminary tortures with the most fearless unconcern, he told them, when preparing to commence a new series, with a countenance of scorn, he could teach them how to make an enemy eat fire to some purpose; and begged that they would give him an opportunity, together with a pipe and tobacco. In respectful astonishment, at an unwonted demonstration of invincible endurance, they granted his request. He lighted his pipe, began to smoke, and sat down, all naked as he was, upon the burning torches, which were blazing within his circle. Every muscle of his countenance retained its composure. On viewing this, a noted warrior sprang up, exclaiming, that this was a true warrior; that though his nation was treacherous, and he had caused them many deaths, yet such was their respect for true courage, that if the fire had not already spoiled him, he should be spared. That being now impossible, he promised him the merciful release of the tomahawk. He then held the terrible instrument suspended some moments over his head, during all which time he was seen neither to change his posture, move a muscle, or his countenance to blench. The tomahawk fell, and the impassable warrior ceased to suffer.
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