La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1680.] A NIGHT OF HORROR. 207mangled corpses.A hyena warfare had been wagedagainst the dead. La Salle knew the handiwork ofthe Iroquois. The threatened blow had fallen, andthe wolfish hordes of the five cantons had fleshedtheir rabid fangs in a new victim. 1Not far distant, the conquerors had made a rudefort of trunks, boughs, and roots of trees laid togetherto form a circular enclosure ; and this, too, was garnishedwith skulls, stuck on the broken branches andprotruding sticks. The caches, or subterranean storehousesof the villagers, had been broken open andthe contents scattered. The cornfields were laidwaste, and much of the corn thrown into heaps andhalf burned. As La Salle surveyed this scene ofhavoc, one thought engrossed him: where wereTonty and his men? He searched the Iroquois fort:there were abundant traces of its savage occupants,and, among them, a few fragments of French cloth-1"Beaueoup de carcasses a demi rongees par les loups, lessepulchres demolis, les os tire's de leurs fosses et epars par la eampagne; . . . enfin les loups et les corbeaux augmentoient encorepar leurs hurlemens et par leurs cris rhorreur de ce spectacle." —Relation des Decouvertes du S r -de la Salle. ^The above may seem exaggerated ; but it accords perfectly with vwhat is well established concerning the ferocious character of theIroquois and the nature of their warfare. Many other tribes havefrequently made war upon the dead. I have myself known aninstance in which five corpses of Sioux Indians placed in trees,after the practice of the Western bands of that people, were throwndown and kicked into fragments by a war party of the Crows, whothen held the muzzles of their guns against the skulls, and blewthem to pieces. This happened near the head of the Hatte, in thelummer of 1846. Yet the Crows are much less ferocious than wenthe Iroquois in La Salle's time.