Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.djvu/37

COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES tory was celebrated. Notices of these feasts were sent to the wigwams and to the friendly tribes by means of a runner, who bore small pieces of painted wood. He would give the date and program verbally. When the feast occurred the bucks, squaws and young Indians would sit around the fires, on which were boiling the kettles of green com, juicy venison, bear meat, fat coon and hominy. Warriors and squaws dressed in their best, and the occasion was one of vast ceremonial. Each was provided with a wooden bowl and a spoon of bone or metal, and they helped themselves whenever the food had been cooked to their notion.

None but the warriors participated in the wild excitement of the war dance, but the youths were allowed to look on in order to prepare for their later initiation, which was severe and nerve-testing. There were other dances in which the young and old joined with loud shoutings, the clangor of tomtoms and other rude instruments; winding dances with intricate figures; wild square dances, in which the maiden might show her preference for the favorite hunter; and these dances often were continued alt night by the light of the blazing camp fires.

The sports and pastimes of the savages were in character more in the way of preparation for and incentive to the objects and pursuits of their life, and consisted of running and canoe races, jumping, wrestling, shooting, throwing the tomahawk, and, in the days before the introduction of firearms, of practice with the bow and arrow. Football was a very popular game, the excitement lasting sometimes for days and involving the entire village in the sport.

FISHING AND HUNTING

The Susquehanna and the streams flowing into it were the favorite spawning and feeding waters for the choice varieties of the different fishes native to this section, and during the cool months the Indians speared them and trapped them in wicker baskets and nets. The younger people had great sport in following the larger fish in the shoals and rapids and killing them with spears and arrows; and in winter they cut holes in the ice and through them speared the finny denizens of the stream. Trapping of animals was the most profitable pursuit followed. It was a good school for the youths, furnished employment for the old or disabled men, and gave the braves the means wherewith to supply themselves with necessaries and finery from the traders. It sometimes happened, when the season was favorable and game was plenty, that the whole tribe would devote the winter to the traps, which were located at all favorable points along the trails and streams, sometimes occupying a territory of thirty miles in circumference. Beaver, otter and bear skins were the most valuable, but the skins of muskrats, mink, weasels and other small game also were not rejected. The great abundance of game in the woods, the rich soil of the valleys in which were located the villages, provided an unfailing source of supply to the savages. Knowledge of woodcraft and of the habits of the birds and beasts of the forest was the first requisite for existence in .savage life, and in this the Indians excelled. They had expedients for every emergency. One great accomplishment was the ability to imitate the notes and calls of the birds and the cries of the beasts of the forest. Warriors used these calls in their forays, and the first white settlers soon learned to suspect the cry of a bird if sounded at an unusual time.

WARS AND FORAYS

The war party was the most carefully organized band that left a village, the numbers of which it was composed depending upon the character of the expedition. One or two braves might start on a bushwhacking or scalping expedition of their own, or a band of five or six might start out to destroy some isolated cabins and massacre the inmates. Larger parties were made up to attack the settlements. When starting out all the braves donned the warpaint and oiled their bodies, then formed into a single line and marched through the village singing war songs. Just before leaving the limits of the village a salute would be fired, but from that time until the attack was made not a sound broke the stillness of the forest. A war party of Indians could pass within a few feet of the camp of the whites or the cabins of the settlers and make not a sound or leave a single trace of their passage.

The Indians' method of fighting, which has survived even to the present day. was a system of rapid attacks and retreats. They would lie in wait for the enemy and after a sudden attack would fall back to some other advantageous point. In the fight the whole force was formed in an irregular line, covered by anything that the topography of the country afforded. They seldom met the enemy in a