25. "Il y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir."—Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 121.—Le Mercier gives a description of one of these scenes, at which he was present. (Ibid., 1637, 118.) The same horrible practice prevailed to a greater extent among the Iroquois. One of the most remarkable instances of Indian cannibalism is that furnished by a Western tribe, the Miamis, among whom there was a clan, or family, whose hereditary duty and privilege it was to devour the bodies of prisoners burned to death. The act had somewhat of a religious character, was attended with ceremonial observances, and was restricted to the family in question.—See Hon. Lewis Cass, in the appendix to Colonel Whiting's poem, "Ontwa."
26. The Indians had many simple applications for wounds, said to have been very efficacious; but the purity of their blood, owing to the absence from their diet of condiments and stimulants, as well as to their active habits, aided the remedy. In general, they were remarkably exempt from disease or deformity, though often seriously injured by alternations of hunger and excess. The Hurons sometimes died from the effects of their festins à manger tout.
27. The Hurons believed that the chief cause of disease and death was a monstrous serpent, that lived under the earth. By touching a tuft of hair, a feather, or a fragment of bone, with a portion of his flesh or fat, the sorcerer imparted power to it of entering the body of his victim, and gradually killing him. It was an important part of the doctor's function to extract these charms from the vitals of his patient.—Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 75.
28. "Dans le pays de nos Hurons, il se faict aussi des assemblées de toutes les filles d'vn bourg auprés d'vne malade, tant à sa priere, suyuant la resuerie ou le songe qu'elle en aura euë, que par l'ordonnance de Loki (the doctor), pour sa santé et guerison. Les filles ainsi assemblées, on leur demande à toutes, les vnes apres les autres, celuy qu'elles veulent des ieunes hommes du bourg pour dormir auec elles la nuict prochaine: elles en nomment chacune vn, qui sont aussi-tost aduertis par les Maistres de la ceremonie, lesquels viennent tous au soir en la presence de la malade dormir chacun auec celle qui l'a choysi, d'vn bout à l'autre de la Cabane, et passent ainsi toute la nuict, pendant que deux Capitaines aux deux bouts du logis chantent et sonnent de leur Tortuë du soir au lendemain matin, que la ceremonie cesse. Dieu vueille abolir vne si damnable et malheureuse ceremonie."—Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 158.—This unique mode of cure, which was called Andacwandet, is also described by Lalemant, who saw it. (Relation des Hurons, 1639, 84.) It was one of the recognized remedies.
For the medical practices of the Hurons, see also Champlain, Brébeuf, Lafitau, Charlevoix, and other early writers. Those of the Algonquins were in some points different. The doctor often consulted the spirits, to learn the cause and cure of the disease, by a method peculiar to that family of tribes. He shut himself in a small conical lodge, and the spirits here visited him, manifesting their presence by a violent shaking of the whole structure. This superstition will be described in another connection.
29. "On comparing five Iroquois heads, I find that they give an average internal capacity of eighty-eight cubic inches, which is within two inches of the Caucasian mean."—Morton, Crania Americana, 195.—It is remarkable that the internal capacity of the skulls of the barbarous American tribes is greater than that of either the Mexicans or the Peruvians. "The difference in volume is chiefly confined to the occipital and basal portions,"—in other words, to the region of the animal propensities; and hence, it is argued, the ferocious, brutal, and uncivilizable character of the wild tribes.—See J. S. Phillips, Admeasurements of Crania of the Principal Groups of Indians in the United States.
30. Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies, Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).
31. "L'ame de tous les Conseils."—Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.—In 1763 they were Pontiac's best warriors.
32. On the Tionnontates, see Le Mercier, Relation, 1637, 163; Lalemant, Relation, 1641, 69; Ragueneau, Relation, 1648, 61. An excellent summary of their character and history, by Mr. Shea, will be found in Hist. Mag., V. 262.
33. Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka (Jesuit Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries, were the Kahkwas of Seneca tradition.
34. Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1641, 71.—The Niagara was then called the River of the Neutrals, or the Onguiaahra. Lalemant estimates the Neutral population, in 1640, at twelve thousand, in forty villages.
35. Lettre du Père La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet, 1627, in Le Clerc, Établissement de la Foy, I. 346.
36. Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women mentioned by the early writers.
37. The Hurons became very jealous, when La Roche Dallion visited the Neutrals, lest a direct trade should be opened between the latter and the French, against whom they at once put in circulation a variety of slanders: that they were a people who lived on snakes and venom; that they were furnished with tails; and that French women, though having but one breast, bore six children at a birth. The missionary nearly lost his life in consequence, the Neutrals conceiving the idea that he would infect their country with a pestilence.—La Roche Dallion, in Le Clerc, I. 346.
38. Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46.
39. Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10.—"Nous les appellons la Nation Chat, à cause qu'il y a dans leur pais vne quantité prodigieuse de Chats sauuages."—Ibid.—The Iroquois are said to have given the same name, Jegosasa, Cat Nation, to the Neutrals.—Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 41.
Synonymes: Eriés, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon. The Jesuits never had a mission among them, though they seem to have been visited by Champlain's adventurous interpreter, Étienne Brulé, in the summer of 1615.—They are probably the Carantoüans of Champlain.
40. Gallatin erroneously places the Andastes on the Alleghany, Bancroft and others adopting the error. The research of Mr. Shea has shown their identity with the Susquehannocks of the English, and the Minquas of the Dutch.—See Hist. Mag., II. 294.
Synonymes: Andastes, Andastracronnons, Andastaeronnons, Andastaguez, Antastoui (French), Susquehannocks (English), Mengwe, Minquas (Dutch), Conestogas, Conessetagoes (English).