Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/114

102 the women and children, and thofe who have not initiated themfelves in war, to keep apart from them, according to law. Should any of them prove difobedient, the young ones would be dry-fcratched, and the others ftript of every thing they had on them. They obferve the fame ftrid law of purity, in their method of fanctifying themfelves for war, in order to obtain the divine protection, affiftance, and fuccefs. But a few weeks fince, -when a large company of thefe warlike favages were on the point of fetting off to commence war againft the Mufkohge, fome of the wags decoyed a heedlefs trader into their holy ground, and they ftript him, fo as to oblige him to redeem his clothes with vermilion. And, on account of the like trefpafs, they detained two Indian children two nights and a day, till their obftinate parents paid the like ranfom.

Their great beloved man, or Archi-magus^ now places four centinels, one at each corner of the holy fquare, to keep out every living creature as im pure, except the religious order, and the warriors who are not known to have violated the law of the firft-fruit-offering, and that of mar riage, fince the laft year's expiation. Thofe centinels are regularly relieved, and firm to their facred truft ; if they difcerned a dog or cat on the out- limits of the holy fquare, before the firft-fruit-ofFering was made, they would kill it with their arrows on the fpot.

They obferve the fafl till the rifing of the fecond fun '; and be they ever fo hungry in that facred interval, the healthy warriors deem the duty fo awful, and the violation fo inexpreflibly vicious, that no temptation would induce them to violate it ; for, like the Hebrews, they fancy temporal evils are the neceflary effect of their immoral conduit, and they would for ever ridicule and reproach the criminal for every bad occurrence that befel him in the new year, as the finful author of his evils; and would fooner moot themfelves, than fnfFer fuch long-continued (harp difgrace. The reli gious attendants boil a fufficient quantity of button-fnake-roor, highly im- bittered, and give it round pretty warm, in order to vomit and purge their finful bodies. Thus they continue to mortify and purify themfelves, till the end of the fad. When we confider their earneft invocations of the divine efience, in this folemnity their great knowledge of fpecific virtues in fimples that they never apply the aforefaid root, only on religious occa- fions that they frequently drink it to fuch excefs as to impair their health,