Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/299

Rh had died about eight days before, haſtening to finiſh her grief, and who by tearing her hair, beating her breaſt, and drinking ſpirits, made the tears flow in great abundance, in order that ſhe might grieve much in a ſhort ſpace of time, and be married that evening to another young warrior. The manner in which this was viewed by the men and women of the tribe, who ſtood round, ſilent and ſolemn ſpectators of the ſcene, and the indifference with which they anſwered my queſtion reſpecting it, convinced me that it was no unuſual cuſtom. I have known men advanced in years, whoſe wives were old and paſt child-bearing, take young wives, and have children, though the practice of polygamy is not common. Does this favor of frigidity, or want of ardor for the female? Neither do they ſeem to be deficient in natural affection. I have ſeen both fathers and mothers in the deepeſt affliction, when their children have been dangerouſly ill; though I believe the affection is ſtronger in the deſcending than the aſcending ſcale, and though cuſtom forbids a father to grieve immoderately for a ſon ſlain in battle.—‘That they are timerous and cowardly,’ is a character with which there is little reaſon to charge them, when we recollect the manner in which the Iroquois met Mons.———, who marched into their country; in which the old men, who ſcorned to fly, or to ſurvive the capture of their town, braved death, like the old Romans in the time of the Gauls, and in which they ſoon after revenged themſelves by ſacking and deſtroying Montreal. But above all the unſhaken fortitude with which they bear the moſt excruciating tortures and death when