ON THE TRAIL

ON THE WAR-PATH

WAR-CLUB AND HATCHET

FOLLOWING the advice of Owayneo, the Indians received the white explorers and settlers with great kindness and hospitality. But the white men were cruel and crafty and took advantage of the friendly red men because they wanted the Indian land and schemed by dishonest methods to obtain possession of large tracts. Soon the Indian saw his hunting grounds taken and his wigwam threatened with destruction. This injustice roused his warlike and cruel nature, and relations between the white man and the red man developed into a ceaseless warfare that penetrated into every section of the great continent. The former peace of the wilderness was then marred by one long succession of fierce fights and terrible massacres.

Indian warfare was always one of surprises, and ambuscades and fighting in a land of forest and thicket made such a method possible. For centuries the Indian youth had been taught this strange mode of attack. Trained by tests of endurance and of skill, and by knowledge gained from a hunter’s life of suffering, danger and fatigue, the Indian boy grew to manhood. He longed for the time when he, too, might strike the enemy and make a name for himself. The chiefs of the tribe instructed him in the language of the sky and the earth, in the smallest detail of woodcraft and in the keenest methods of finding a trail.

THE WAR DANCE

The most ferocious and skilled warriors were the Mohawks. When, in the early days of the Massachusetts colony, they made war on the New England Indians, it is told how these Indians, upon discovering the enemy, raised the cry from hill to hill, “A Mohawk! A Mohawk!” and fled without making any resistance. On the trail their keen sight and sense of hearing made them enemies much to be feared. No forest or thicket was so dense that they could not find a way through. A broken twig or adisturbed leaf, a bit of clothing or strand of hair was all they needed to follow, with deadly surety, the most difficult of trails.

So well could they imitate the calls of the birds and animals that many a white hunter was lured to his death, and when they took a captive they were most unmerciful and tortured their prisoners in many cruel ways. Burning at a stake and running the gauntlet were among the most popular methods. To accomplish the latter, they first made their prisoner run between two rows of women and children who, armed with sticks, stones and clubs, were expected to hit him. Then the captive was tied to a stake and the braves and chiefs threw knives and tomahawks, so that they came as close as possible to the victim without inflicting wounds. After this ordeal fagots were piled around the stake and set on fire. So in a most cruel fashion the Indians’ bloodthirsty nature and their desire for vengeance were satisfied.

With so many traits of savage instinct awakened, it is no wonder that the white settlers, who were now penetrating every section of the land, had a hard time of it. While working in the fields or doing other peaceful tasks some one in the settlement had to be constantly on the watch for an Indian attack. Riding through the wilderness to visit a neighbor or to buy supplies at the nearest town was extremely dangerous, for no one knew the hour or minute when the war-whoop would sound and the tomahawk fall.

AN INDIAN CLUB

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