28. Such extempore works of defence are still used among some tribes of the remote west. The author has twice seen them, made of trees piled together as described by Champlain, probably by war parties of the Crow or Snake Indians. Champlain, usually too concise, is very minute in his description of the march and encampment.
29. According to Lafitan, hoth bucklers and breastplates were in frequent use among the Iroquois. The former were very large and made of cedar wood covered with interwoven thongs of hide. The kindred nation of the Hurons, says Sagard (Voyage des hlurens, 126–206), carried large shields, and wore greaves for the legs and enirasses made of twigs interwoven with cords. His account corresponds with that of Champlain, who gives a wood-cut of a warrior thus armed.
30. It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of scalping did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of Europeans. In 1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off and carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped dead bodies on the field. Thu Algonquin practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemant, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain. Compare Historical Magazine, First Series, V. 233.
31. Traces of cannibalism may be found among most of the North American tribes, though they are rarely very conspicuous. Sometimes the practice arose, as in the present instance, from revenge or ferocity sometimes it bore a religious character, as with the Miamis, among whom there existed a secret religions fraternity of man-eaters sometimes the heart of a brave enemy was devoured in the idea that it made the eater brave. This last practice was common. The ferocious threat, used in speaking of an enemy, "I will eat his heart," is by no means a mere figure of speech. The roving hunter-tribes, in their winter wanderings, were not infrequently impelled to cannibalism by famine.
32. The first white man to descend the rapids of St. Louis was a youth named Louis, who, on the 10th of June, 1611, went with two Indians to shoot herons on an island, and was drowned on the way down; the second was a young man who in the summer before had gone with the Hurons to their country, and who returned with them on the 18th of June; the third was Champlain himself.
33. Wampum was a sort of beads, of several colors, made originally by the Indians from the inner portion of certain shells, and afterwards by the French of porcelain and glass. It served a treble purpose—that of currency, decoration, and record, wrought into belts of various devices, each having its significance, it preserved the substance of treaties and compacts from generation to generation.
Volume 2:
The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century
Table of Contents
CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.