Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 2).djvu/120

114 they have determined to make war, they send the belts and pipes to their enemies; and if a similar compliment is returned, they instantly prepare for blood, with the most steady and determined resolution.

The novel of Emily Montague affords a striking example of this strong propensity for blood, which I shall relate in the author's own words.

"A Jesuit missionary told me a story on this subject, which one cannot hear without horror. An Indian woman with whom he lived on his mission, was feeding her children, when her husband brought in an English prisoner; she immediately cut off his arm, and gave her children the streaming blood to drink. The Jesuit remonstrated on the cruelty of the action; on which, looking sternly at him—I would have them warriors, said she, and therefore feed them with the food of men."

When I was at Cataraqui, the capital of the Loyalist settlements in Canada, a party of Mohawks and Messesawgers accidentally met, and having bartered their skins and peltry with the traders, sat themselves down to drink the rum their merchandize had produced. As the liquor began to operate, their imaginations suggested to them that they were of different nations, and as the Mohawks always claimed a superiority, intoxication made them proud: at last a dispute arose, and a Messesawger Indian was killed, and his heart taken out, which the {78} Mohawks intended to have broiled, but they were prevented by a gentleman who accidentally passed by their hut, and prevailed upon them to give it up.

It seems to be the constant attention both of the male and female part of the Indians to instil ideas of heroism into the minds of the rising generation, and these impressions they carry far beyond the line of reason or of