stand over deep places of a river. There, they pull off their red
breeches, or their long slip of Stroud cloth, and wrapping it round
their arm, so as to reach to the lower part of the palm of their right
hand, they dive under the rock where the large cat-fish lie to shelter
themselves from the scorching beams of the sun, and to watch for prey:
as soon as those fierce aquatic animals see that tempting bait, they
immediately seize it with the greatest violence, in order to swallow it.
Then is the time for the diver to improve the favourable opportunity: he
accordingly opens his hand, seizes the voracious fish by his tender
parts, hath a sharp struggle with it against the crevices of the rock,
and at last brings it safe ashore. Except the Choktah, all our Indians,
both male and female, above the state of infancy, are in the watery
element nearly equal to amphibious animals, by practice: and from the
experiments necessity has forced them to, it seems as if few were endued
with such strong natural abilities,—very few can equal them in their
wild situation of life.
There is a favourite method among them of fishing with hand-nets.[243]
The nets are about three feet deep, and of the same diameter at the
opening, made of hemp, and knotted after the usual manner of our nets.
On each side of the mouth, they tie very securely a strong elastic green
cane, to which the ends are fastened. Prepared with these, the warriors
a-breast, jump in at the end of a long pond, swimming under water, with
their net stretched open with both hands, and the canes in a horizontal
position. In this manner, they will continue, either till their breath
is expended by the want of respiration, or till the net is so ponderous
as to force them to exonerate it ashore, or in a basket, fixt in a
proper place for that purpose—by removing one hand, the canes instantly
spring together. I have been engaged half a day at a time, with the
old-friendly Chikkasah, and half drowned in the diversion—when any of us
was so unfortunate as to catch water-snakes in our sweep, and emptied
them ashore, we had the ranting voice of our friendly posse comitatus,
whooping against us, till another party was so unlucky as to meet with
the like misfortune. During this exercise, the women are fishing ashore
with coarse baskets, to catch the fish {404} that escape our nets. At
the end of our friendly diversion, we cheerfully return home, and in an
innocent and friendly manner, eat together, studiously diverting each
other, on the incidents of the day, and make a cheerful night.
The Indians formerly had stone axes,[244] which in form commonly
resembled a smith’s chisel. Each weighed from one to two, or three
pounds weight—They were made of a flinty kind of stone: I have seen
several, which chanced to escape being buried with their owners, and
were carefully preserved by the old people, as respectable remains of
antiquity. They twisted two or three tough hiccory slips, of about two
feet long, round the notched head of the axe; and by means of this
simple and obvious invention, they deadened the trees by cutting through
the bark, and burned them, when they either fell by decay, or became
thoroughly dry. With these trees they always kept up their annual holy
fire; and they reckon it unlawful, and productive of many temporal
evils, to extinguish even the culinary fire with water. In the time of a
storm, when I have done it, the kindly women were in pain for me,
through fear of the ill consequences attending so criminal an act. I
never saw them to damp the fire, only when they hung up a brand in the
appointed place, with a twisted grape-vine, as a threatening symbol of
torture and death to the enemy; or when their kinsman dies. In the last
case, a father or brother of the deceased, takes a fire-brand, and
brandishing it two or three times round his head, with lamenting words,
he with his right hand dips it into the water, and lets it sink down.
By the aforesaid difficult method of deadening the trees, and clearing
the woods, the contented natives got convenient fields in process of
time. And their tradition says they did not live straggling in the
American woods, as do the Arabians, and rambling Tartars; for they made
houses with the branches and bark of trees, for the summer-season; and
warm mud-walls, mixt with soft dry grass, against the bleak winter,
according to their present plan of building, which I shall presently
describe. Now, in the first clearing of their plantations, they only
bark the large timber, cut down the sapplings and underwood, and burn
them in heaps; as the suckers shoot up, they chop them off close by the
stump, of which they make fires to deaden the roots, till in time they
decay. Though to a stranger, this may seem to be a {405} lazy method of
clearing the wood-lands; yet it is the most expeditious method they
could have pitched upon, under their circumstances, as a common hoe and
a small hatchet are all their implements for clearing and planting.[245]
Every dwelling-house[246] has a small field pretty close to it: and, as
soon as the spring of the year admits, there they plant a variety of
large and small beans, peas, and the smaller sort of Indian corn, which
usually ripens in two months, from the time it is planted; though it is
called by the English, the six weeks corn. Around this small farm, they
fasten stakes in the ground, and tie a couple of long split hiccory, or
white oak-sapplings, at proper distances to keep off the horses: though
they cannot leap fences, yet many of the old horses will creep through
these enclosures, almost as readily as swine, to the great regret of the
women, who scold and give them ill names, calling them ugly mad horses,
and bidding them “go along, and be sure to keep away, otherwise their
hearts will hang sharp within them, and set them on to spoil them, if
envy and covetousness lead them back.” Thus they argue with them, and
they are usually as good as their word, by striking a tomohawk into the
horse, if he does not observe the friendly caution they gave him at the
last parting. Their large fields lie quite open with regard to fencing,
and they believe it to be agreeable to the best rules of œconomy;
because, as they say, they can cultivate the best of their land here and
there, as it suits their conveniency, without wasting their time in
fences and childishly confining their improvements, as if the crop would
eat itself. The women however tether the horses with tough young
bark-ropes, and confine the swine in convenient penns, from the time the
provisions are planted, till they are gathered in—the men improve this
time, either in killing plenty of wild game, or coursing against the
common enemy, and thereby secure the women and girls, and get their own
temples surrounded with the swan-feathered cap. In this manner, the
Indians have to me, excused their long-contracted habit and practice.
The chief part of the Indians begin to plant their out-fields, when the
wild fruit is so ripe, as to draw off the birds from picking up the
grain. This is their general rule, which is in the beginning of May,
about the time the traders set off for the English settlements. Among
several nations of Indians, each town usually works together. Previous
thereto, an old {406} beloved man warns the inhabitants to be ready to
plant on a prefixed day. At the dawn of it, one by order goes aloft, and
whoops to them with shrill calls, “that the new year is far
advanced,—that he who expects to eat, must work,—and that he who will
not work, must expect to pay the fine according to old custom, or leave
the town, as they will not sweat themselves for an healthy idle waster.”
At such times, may be seen many war-chieftains working in common with
the people, though as great emperors, as those the Spaniards bestowed on
the old simple Mexicans and Peruvians, and equal in power, (i. e.
persuasive force) with the imperial and puissant Powhatan of Virginia,
whom our generous writers raised to that prodigious pitch of power and
grandeur, to rival the Spanish accounts. About an hour after sun-rise,
they enter the field agreed on by lot, and fall to work with great
cheerfulness; sometimes one of their orators cheers them with jests and
humorous old tales, and sings several of their most agreeable wild
tunes, beating also with a stick in his right hand, on the top of an
earthern pot covered with a wet and well-stretched deer-skin: thus they
proceed from field to field, till their seed is sown.
Corn is their chief produce, and main dependance.[247] Of this they have
three sorts; one of which hath been already mentioned. The second sort
is yellow and flinty, which they call “hommony-corn.” The third is the
largest, of a very white and soft grain, termed “bread-corn.” In July,
when the chesnuts and corn are green and full grown, they half boil the
former, and take off the rind; and having sliced the milky, swelled,
long rows of the latter, the women pound it in a large wooden mortar,
which is wide at the mouth, and gradually narrows to the bottom: then
they knead both together, wrap them up in green corn-blades of various
sizes, about an inch-thick, and boil them well, as they do every kind of
seethed food. This sort of bread is very tempting to the taste, and
reckoned most delicious to their strong palates. They have another sort
of boiled bread, which is mixed with beans, or potatoes; they put on the
soft corn till it begins to boil, and pound it sufficiently fine;—their
invention does not reach to the use of any kind of milk. When the flour
is stirred, and. dried by the heat of the sun or fire, they sift it with
sieves of different sizes, curiously made of the coarser or finer
cane-splinters. The thin cakes mixt with bear’s oil, were formerly baked
on thin broad stones placed over a fire, or on broad earthen bottoms fit
for such a use: but now they use kettles. When they intend to {407} bake
great loaves, they make a strong blazing fire, with short dry split
wood, on the hearth. When it is burnt down to coals, they carefully rake
them off to each side, and sweep away the remaining ashes: then they put
their well-kneeded broad loaf, first steeped in hot water, over the
hearth, and an earthen bason above it, with the embers and coals a-top.
This method of baking is as clean and efficacious as could possibly be
done in any oven; when they take it off, they wash the loaf with warm
water, and it soon becomes firm, and very white. It is likewise very
wholesome, and well-tasted to any except the vitiated palate of an
Epicure.
The French of West-Florida, and the English colonists, got from the
Indians different sorts of beans and peas, with which they were before
entirely unacquainted. And they plant a sort of small tobacco, which the
French and English have not. All the Indian nations we have any
acquaintance with, frequently use it on the most religious occasions.
The women plant also pompions, and different sorts of melons, in
separate fields, at a considerable distance from the town, where each
owner raises an high scaffold, to over-look this favourite part of their
vegetable possessions: and though the enemy sometimes kills them in this
their strict watch duty, yet it is a very rare thing to pass by those
fields, without seeing them there at watch. This usually is the duty of
the old women, who fret at the very shadow of a crow, when he chances to
pass on his wide survey of the fields; but if pinching hunger should
excite him to descend, they soon frighten him away with their screeches.
When the pompions are ripe, they cut them into long circling slices,
which they barbacue, or dry with a slow heat. And when they have half
boiled the larger sort of potatoes, they likewise dry them over a
moderate fire, and chiefly use them in the spring-season, mixt with
their favourite bear’s oil. As soon as the larger sort of corn is
full-eared, they half-boil it too, and dry it either by the sun, or over
a slow fire; which might be done, as well, in a moderately hot oven, if
the heat was renewed as occasion required. This they boil with venison,
or any other unsalted flesh. They commonly have pretty good crops, which
is owing to the richness of the soil; for they often let the weeds
outgrow the corn, before they begin to be in earnest with their work,
owing to their laziness and unskilfulness in planting: and this method
is general through all those nations that work separately {408} in their
own fields, which in a great measure checks the growth of their crops.
Besides, they are so desirous of having _multum in parvo_, without much
sweating, that they plant the corn-hills so close, as to thereby choak
up the field.—They plant their corn in straight rows, putting five or
six grains into one hole, about two inches distant—They cover them with
clay in the form of a small hill. Each row is a yard asunder, and in the
vacant ground they plant pumpkins, water-melons, marsh-mallows,
sun-flowers, and sundry sorts of beans and peas, the last two of which
yield a large increase.
They have a great deal of fruit, and they dry such kinds as will bear
it. At the fall of the leaf, they gather a number of hiccory-nuts, which
they pound with a round stone, upon a stone, thick and hollowed for the
purpose.[248] When they are beat fine enough, they mix them with cold
water, in a clay bason, where the shells subside. The other part is an
oily, tough, thick, white substance, called by the traders hiccory
milk,[249] and by the Indians the flesh, or fat of hiccory-nuts, with
which they eat their bread. A hearty stranger would be as apt to dip
into the sediments as I did, the first time this vegetable thick milk
was set before me. As ranging the woods had given me a keen appetite, I
was the more readily tempted to believe they only tantalized me for
their diversion, when they laughed heartily at my supposed ignorance.
But luckily when the bason was in danger, the bread was brought in
piping hot, and the good-natured land-lady being informed of my
simplicity, shewed me the right way to use the vegetable liquid. It is
surprising to see the great variety of dishes they make out of wild
flesh, corn, beans, peas, potatoes, pompions, dried fruits, herbs and
roots. They can diversify their courses, as much as the English, or
perhaps the French cooks: and in either of the ways they dress their
food, it is grateful to a wholesome stomach.
Their old fields abound with larger strawberries[250] than I have seen
in any part of the world; insomuch, that in the proper season, one may
gather a hat-full, in the space of two or three yards square. They have
a sort of wild potatoes,[251] which grow plentifully in their rich low
lands, from South-Carolina to the Missisippi, and partly serve them
instead of bread, either in the woods a hunting, or at home when the
foregoing summer’s crop fails them. They have a small vine, which
twines, {409} chiefly round the watry alder; and the hogs feed often
upon the grapes. Their surface is uneven, yet inclining to a round
figure. They are large, of a course grain, well-tasted, and very
wholesome; in the woods, they are a very agreeable repast. There grows a
long flag, in shallow ponds, and on the edges of running waters, with an
ever-green, broad, round leaf, a little indented where it joins the
stalk; it bears only one leaf, that always floats on the surface of the
water, and affords plenty of cooling small nuts, which make a
sweet-tasted, and favourite bread, when mixed with Indian corn flour. It
is a sort of marsh-mallows, and reckoned a speedy cure for burning
maladies, either outward or inward,—for the former, by an outward
application of the leaf; and for the latter, by a decoction of it drank
plentifully. The Choktah so highly esteem this vegetable, that they call
one of their head-towns, by its name.
Providence hath furnished even the uncultivated parts of America with
sufficient to supply the calls of nature.—Formerly, about fifty miles to
the north-east of the Chikkasah country, I saw the chief part of the
main camp of the Shawano,[252] consisting of about 450 persons, on a
tedious ramble to the Muskohge country, where they settled,
seventy-miles above the Alabahma-garrison: they had been straggling in
the woods, for the space of four years, as they assured me, yet in
general they were more corpulent than the Chikkasah who accompanied me,
notwithstanding they had lived during that time, on the wild products of
the American desarts. This evinces how easily nature’s wants are
supplied, and that the divine goodness extends to America and its
inhabitants. They are acquainted with a great many herbs and roots, of
which the general part of the English have not the least knowledge. If
an Indian were driven out into the extensive woods, with only a knife
and tomohawk, or a small hatchet, it is not to be doubted but he would
fatten, even where a wolf would starve. He could soon collect fire, by
rubbing two dry pieces of wood together, make a bark hut, earthen
vessels, and a bow and arrows; then kill wild game, fish, fresh water
tortoises, gather a plentiful variety of vegetables, and live in
affluence. Formerly, they made their knives of flint-stone, or of split
canes; and sometimes they are now forced to use the like, in slaying
wild animals, when in their winter hunt they have the misfortune to lose
their knives. {410}
I shall mention one instance, which will confirm what I have said of
their surprising skill and ability of living in desarts, inhabited only
by wild beasts. In the winter of the year 1747, one of the Chikkasah
traders went from home, about ten miles, accompanied only by a negro;
six of the miles was an old waste field, which the Chikkasah formerly
had settled, when they were more numerous. On their return home, within
two miles of the outer-houses, while riding carelesly near two steep
gullies, there stood a couple of Canada Indians behind a tree, (beside
two others a little way off) within a few yards of the path, with their
trunk guns, watching two boys then in sight—when the trader and his
servant came abreast of them, the negro’s horse received a mortal shot,
and after carrying him about a quarter of a mile, on leaping a difficult
pass, he fell dead on the spot; the rider’s heels carried him the rest
of the way safe: but, unluckily, it did not fare so well with the
gentleman, for as he rode a young Choktah horse, which had been used
only to a rope round his neck, the reining him with a bridle, checked
him, and the French savages had an opportunity to give the gentleman two
mortal wounds, with brass-barbed arrows, the one in his belly, and the
other a little below the heart; beside two others in his left shoulder.
His horse being frightened, sprung off at full speed, and brought him
home. The gentleman in his rapid course twisted the murdering arrows out
of his bowels, but could not reach those that were deeply lodged in his
shoulder. He lived two nights and a day after this in most exquisite
tortures, but sensible to the last; when he had been forcibly kept down,
a considerable time on the bed, he entreated in the most importunate
manner, to be helped to lean his back against the wall, and it would
give him ease. At my request it was allowed him—he immediately expired,
and it is to be hoped, that, according to his desire, he immediately
entered into eternal rest. While he lay a corpse, and till we the next
day buried him, the Indians were silent, and almost invisible. The negro
and his master, as soon as they discovered the Canadians, put up the
shrill whoop, both to warn the Chikkasah, and draw them against the
enemy; this made the two boys to stretch home, which they did a little
before sun-set. But the lateness of the day, prevented our friends
pursuing, till next morning. By the distance the enemy ran in the night,
they for that time evaded their eager pursuers. Some went to the place
of ambuscade, and found that the enemy being disappointed of the prey
falling into their hands, had pursued till they came up with the negro’s
{411} horse, which they had chopped, and the saddle, with their
tomohawks, all to pieces. However, about half way between the Chikkasah
country and the Illinois, three old Chikkasah warriors, on their way to
join the main camp, came up with those Canadians in wet bushy
ground;—they closely chased them for several miles, and forced them by
degrees to throw away every thing they carried, and seek their safety by
leaping quite naked into a deep and broad creek, that was much frozen on
the two banks; it was for some time imagined they had perished in the
woods, by the severity of winter, but we were well informed afterwards,
that like hardy beasts of prey, they got safe home.
None of the Indians however eat any kind of raw sallads; they reckon
such food is only fit for brutes. Their taste is so very opposite to
that of cannibals, that in order to destroy the blood, (which with them
is an abomination to eat) they over-dress every kind of animal food they
use. I have often jested them for pressing me to eat eggs, that were
boiled so much as to be blue, and told them my teeth were too bad to
chew bullets. They said they could not suck eggs after the manner of the
white people, otherwise they would have brought them raw; but they hoped
I would excuse the present, and they would take particular care not to
repeat the error, the next time I favoured them with a visit. In the
spring of the year, they use a great many valuable greens and herbs,
which nature has peculiarly adapted to their rich, and high-situated
regions: few of them have gardens, and it is but of late they have had
any angelica, or bellyach-root; this is one of their physical greens,
which they call _Looksooshe_.
I shall now describe the domestic life of the Indians, and the traders
among them. The Indians settle themselves in towns or villages after an
easy manner; the houses are not too close to incommode one another, nor
too far distant for social defence. If the nation where the English
traders reside, is at war with the French, or their red confederates,
which is the same, their houses are built in the middle of the town, if
desired, on account of greater security. But if they are at peace with
each other, both the Indians and traders chuse to settle at a very
convenient distance, for the sake of their live stock, especially the
latter, for the Indian youth are as destructive to the pigs and poultry,
as so many young wolves or foxes. {412} Their parents now only give them
ill names for such misconduct, calling them mad; but the mischievous,
and thievish, were formerly sure to be dry-scratched, which punishment
hath been already described.
Most of the Indians have clean, neat, dwelling houses, white-washed
within and without, either with decayed oyster-shells, coarse-chalk, or
white marly clay; one or other of which, each of our Indian nations
abounds with, be they ever so far distant from the sea-shore: the
Indians, as well as the traders, usually decorate their summer-houses
with this favourite white-wash.—The former have likewise each a
corn-house, fowl-house, and a hot-house,[253] or stove for winter: and
so have the traders likewise separate store-houses for their goods, as
well as to contain the proper remittances received in exchange.