siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

164 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 103
no account when it is won at the price of the blood of their relatives and their
friends. So the war chiefs take great pains to save their warriors and to
attack the enemy only when they are sure to win, either on account of their
niunbers or natural topographical advantages, but as their adversaries have
the same skill and know as well as they how to avoid the snares which are laid
for them, the most cunning is the one who conquers. For that reason they
hide themselves in the woods during the day and travel only at night, and if
they are not discovered, they attack at daybreak. As they are usually in
wooded country, the one who goes in advance sometimes holds a very thick
bush in front of him, and, as all follow in a line, the last effaces the marks
of those who have gone ahead, so arranging the leaves, or the earth over
which they have passed, that there remains no trace that might betray them.
The principal things which serve to reveal them to their enemies are the
smoke of their fires, which they scent at a great distance and their tracks which
are recognized in an almost incredible manner. One day a savage showed me,
in a place where I perceived nothing, the footprints of Frenchmen, savages,
and Negroes who had passed that way, and told me bow long before they had
been by. I confess that this knowledge appeared to me miraculous. One must
admit that when the savages apply themselves to a single thing they excel
at it.
The art of war, among them, as you see, consists in watchfulness, care to
avoid ambuscades and in taking the enemy unawares, patience and endurance
to withstand hunger, thirst, the inclemency of the seasons, the labors and the
fatigues inseparable from war.
He who has struck a blow in war, carries off the dead man's scalp as a
trophy, and has a record pricked or outlined on his body. Then he goes into
mourning, and during that time, continuing for a month, he must not comb
his hair, so that if his head itches, he is permitted to scratch himself only
with a little stick fastened to his wrist for that particular purpose."
Romans, writing at a little later period, has this to say regarding
the warlike character and war customs of the tribe
They are in their warlike temper far from being such cowards as people in
general will pretend, but it is true they are not so fond of wandering abroad to
do mischief as the other savages are; few of such expeditions are undertaken
by them, and they give for a reason, that in going abroad they may chance to
be obliged to content themselves with a woman's or child's scalp, but in staying
at home and waiting the attack of the enemy, they by pursuing them, are sure
to take men, which is a greater mark of valour : be this as it will, it is certain
they are carefully, cunningly, and bravely watchful! at home, and on several
occasions they have, after many insults, boldly offered to meet their enemies in
equal numbers on a plain, which has always been by the other savages treated
with scorn, as cowardice ; however when it has happened by chance that they
meet so. we have seen them brave and victorious. Even in the very town of
Mobile, an action of this kind happened deserving a record, when they drove
their enemies (the Creeks) through the river, and but for their inability to
swim, they would have totally destroyed them; the Captain Hooma or red
Captain fighting with forty men against three hundred Creeks, and with his own
hand destroying thirteen of their Chiefs, even when fighting on his knees, and
when he fell, bravely telling who he was, and his being flead alive for his
"Appendix, pp. 258-260; M. Bossu, Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes occidentales, 2 vols.,
Paris, 1768. Vol. 2, pp. 89-94.