SECT. IV.] BETWEEN THE MISSISSIPPI AND THE PACIFIC. 131 theirs; but they had also continual quarrels, often degenerating into actual hostilities, between themselves. These originated in encroachments on hunting-grounds, elopement or carrying off of women, and stealing of horses. During their temporary absence from their villages, cornfields and provisions in store appear to have been generally respected by straggling parties, even of enemies ; with the understanding, however, that Indians when hungry have a right to feed on any provisions which they discover, and may actually want for that purpose. But it is in their mode of warfare, either amongst themselves, or against other tribes, that we find a decisive proof of much less ferocious habits, than those which characterize the Indian who dwells in the forests between the Mississippi and the Atlantic. The enemies wounded in battle are killed on the spot, but without any particular act of cruelty, and rarely if ever scalped. The prisoners carried home are neither tortured nor put to death. The women are made slaves ; the men are considered as servants, and generally employed in taking care of the horses, and in other menial offices, but not in raising corn, that being woman's work. The children are almost always adopted into the nation. Amongst the exploits which are the boast of their warriors, that which confers the highest distinction is to take a prisoner alive ; the next, to strike with a lance or some other weapon an enemy alive ; the third, that of striking in the same manner the dead body of an enemy in presence of his friends ; the fourth, taking a horse; last of all, shooting an enemy at a distance with a bullet or arrow, this being that which any one can do. It is but just to observe, that traces of chivalry were also found amongst our eastern Indians. It was a settled rule amongst them, that those who killed stragglers, should leave marks designating to what tribe those who had committed the act belonged. But if done in the vicinity, or even in the heart, of the village of an enemy, the warrior was bound, at the moment he took off the scalp, to raise the w 7 arwhoop, thus giving notice of the deed, and trusting to his own superior swiftness and skill for escaping the immediate pursuit of an enraged and unforgiv- ing foe. #
- The fact, so far as relates to the Delawares, was fully confirmed
by General Douglass of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, a gentleman of
