MANNER OF SURPRISING THEIR ENEMIES.
Courage, art, and circumspection are the essential and indispensable
qualifications of an Indian warrior. When war is once begun, each
one strives to excel in displaying them, by stealing upon his enemy
unawares, and deceiving and surprising him in various ways. On drawing
near to an enemy’s country, they endeavour as much as possible to
conceal their tracks; sometimes they scatter themselves, marching at
proper distances from each other for a whole day and more, meeting,
however, again at night, when they keep a watch; at other times they
march in what is called _Indian file_, one man behind the other,
treading carefully in each other’s steps, so that their number may not
be ascertained by the prints of their feet. The nearer they suppose
themselves to be to the enemy, the more attentive they are to choosing
hard, stony, and rocky ground, on which human footsteps leave no
impression; soft, marshy and grassy soils are particularly avoided, as
in the former the prints of the feet would be easily discovered, and in
the latter the appearance of the grass having been trodden upon might
lead to detection; for if the grass or weeds are only bent, and have
the least mark of having been walked upon, it will be almost certainly
perceived, in which the sharpness and quickness of the Indians’ sight
is truly astonishing.
In some instances they deceive their enemies by imitating the cries
or calls of some animal, such as the fawn, or turkey. They do this so
admirably well, that they even draw the dam of the one and the mate
of the other to the spot to which they want to come. In this manner
they often succeed in decoying the enemies to the place where they
are lying in ambush, or get an opportunity of surrounding them. Such
stratagems, however, cannot be resorted to in all seasons; with the
turkey, it only answers in the spring, and with the fawn’s dam until
about midsummer. In the same manner, when scattered about in the woods,
they easily find each other by imitating the song of some birds, such
as the quail and the rook, and at evening and morning, and particularly
in the night, the cry of the owl. By this means they all join each
other, though not at the same time, as they are not, perhaps, all
within hearing; but the cry of the owl is repeated from time to time
until they are all assembled.
It is certain that the Indians, by the prints of the feet and by
other marks and signs perceivable only to themselves, can readily
discover, not only that men have passed through a particular path or
line of march, but they can discriminate to what particular nation
those men belong, and whether they are their friends or their enemies.
They also sometimes make discoveries by examining obscure places,
and by that means get informed of an enemy’s design. Nay, there are
those among them who pretend to be able to discriminate among various
marks of human footsteps the different nations of those to whom they
respectively belong. I shall not undertake to assert thus far, but I
shall relate an anecdote, the truth of which I firmly believe, in proof
of their extraordinary sagacity in this respect.
In the beginning of the summer of the year 1755, a most atrocious and
shocking murder was unexpectedly committed by a party of Indians,
on fourteen white settlers within five miles of Shamokin.[176] The
surviving whites, in their rage, determined to take their revenge by
murdering a Delaware Indian who happened to be in those parts and was
far from thinking himself in any danger. He was a great friend to the
whites, was loved and esteemed by them, and in testimony of their
regard, had received from them the name of _Duke Holland_,[177] by
which he was generally known. This Indian, satisfied that his nation
was incapable of committing such a foul murder in a time of profound
peace, told the enraged settlers, that he was sure that the Delawares
were not in any manner concerned in it, and that it was the act of
some wicked Mingoes or Iroquois, whose custom it was to involve other
nations in wars with each other, by clandestinely committing murders,
so that they might be laid to the charge of others than themselves. But
all his representations were vain; he could not convince exasperated
men whose minds were fully bent upon revenge. At last, he offered that
if they would give him a party to accompany him, he would go with them
in quest of the murderers, and was sure he could discover them by the
prints of their feet and other marks well known to him, by which he
would convince them that the real perpetrators of the crime belonged
to the Six Nations. His proposal was accepted, he marched at the head
of a party of whites and led them into the tracks. They soon found
themselves in the most rocky parts of a mountain, where not one of
those who accompanied him was able to discover a single track, nor
would they believe that man had ever trodden upon this ground, as
they had to jump over a number of crevices between the rocks, and in
some instances to crawl over them. Now they began to believe that the
Indian had led them across those rugged mountains in order to give
the enemy time to escape, and threatened him with instant death the
moment they should be fully convinced of the fraud. The Indian, true
to his promise, would take pains to make them perceive that an enemy
had passed along the places through which he was leading them; here
he would shew them that the moss on the rock had been trodden down by
the weight of an human foot, there that it had been torn and dragged
forward from its place: further he would point out to them that pebbles
or small stones on the rocks had been removed from their beds by the
foot hitting against them, that dry sticks by being trodden upon were
broken, and even that in a particular place, an Indian’s blanket had
dragged over the rocks, and removed or loosened the leaves lying there,
so that they lay no more flat, as in other places; all which the
Indian could perceive as he walked along, without even stopping. At
last arriving at the foot of the mountain on soft ground, where the
tracks were deep, he found out that the enemy were eight in number,
and from the freshness of the footprints, he concluded that they must
be encamped at no great distance. This proved to be the exact truth,
for, after gaining the eminence on the other side of the valley, the
Indians were seen encamped, some having already laid down to sleep,
while others were drawing off their _leggings_[178] for the same
purpose, and the scalps they had taken were hanging up to dry. “See!”
said Duke Holland to his astonished companions, “there is the enemy!
not of my nation, but Mingoes, as I truly told you. They are in our
power; in less than half an hour they will all be fast asleep. We need
not fire a gun, but go up and tomahawk them. We are nearly two to one
and need apprehend no danger. Come on, and you will now have your full
revenge!” But the whites, overcome with fear, did not choose to follow
the Indian’s advice, and urged him to take them back by the nearest and
best way, which he did, and when they arrived at home late at night,
they reported the number of the Iroquois to have been so great, that
they durst not venture to attack them.
This account is faithfully given as I received it from _Duke Holland_
himself, and took it down in writing at the time. I had been acquainted
with this Indian for upwards of twenty years, and knew him to be
honest, intelligent and a lover of truth. Therefore I gave full credit
to what he told me, and as yet have had no reason to disbelieve or even
to doubt it. I once employed him to save the life of a respectable
gentleman, now residing at Pittsburg, who was in imminent danger of
being killed by a war party. Duke Holland conducted him safely through
the woods, from the Muskingum to the Ohio settlement. He once found a
watch of mine, which had been sent to me from Pittsburg by a man who
had got drunk, and lost it in the woods about fifty miles from the
place where I lived. Duke Holland went in search of it, and having
discovered the tracks of the man to whom it had been entrusted, he
pursued them until he found the lost article, which he delivered to me.