Boone becomes a favorite among the Indians--Anecdotes relating to his
captivity--Their mode of tormenting and burning prisoners--Their
fortitude under the infliction of torture--Concerted attack on
Boonesborough--Boone escapes.
Boone, being now a son in a principal Shawnee family, presents himself
in a new light to our observation. We would be glad to be able give a
diurnal record of his modes of deportment, and getting along. Unhappily,
the records are few and meagre. It will be obvious, that the necessity
for a more profound dissimulation of contentment, cheerfulness, and a
feeling of loving his home, was stronger than ever. It was a semblance
that must be daily and hourly sustained. He would never have acquitted
himself successfully, but for a wonderful versatility, which enabled him
to enter into the spirit of whatever parts he was called upon to
sustain; and a real love for the hunting and pursuits of the Indians,
which rendered what was at first assumed, with a little practice, and
the influence of habit, easy and natural. He soon became in semblance so
thoroughly one of them, and was able in all those points of practice
which give them reputation, to conduct himself with so much skill and
adroitness, that he gained the entire confidence of the family into
which he was adopted, and become as dear to his mother of adoption as
her own son.
Trials of Indian strength and skill are among their most common
amusements. Boone was soon challenged to competition in these trials. In
these rencounters of loud laughter and boisterous merriment, where all
that was done seemed to pass into oblivion as fast as it transpired,
Boone had too much tact and keen observation not to perceive that
jealousy, envy, and the origin of hatred often lay hid under the
apparent recklessness of indifference. He was not sorry that some of the
Indians could really beat him in the race, though extremely light of
foot; and that in the game of ball, at which they had been practised all
their lives, he was decidedly inferior. But there was another
sport--that of shooting at a mark--a new custom to the Indians but
recently habituated to the use of fire arms; a practice which they had
learned from the whites, and they were excessively jealous of reputation
of great skill in this exercise, so important in hunting and war. Boone
was challenged to shoot with them at a mark. It placed him in a most
perplexing dilemma. If he shot his best, he could easily and far excel
their most practised marksmen. But he was aware, that to display his
superiority would never be forgiven him. On the other hand, to fall far
short of them in an exercise which had been hitherto peculiar to the
whites, would forfeit their respect. In this predicament, he judiciously
allowed himself sometimes to be beaten; and when it became prudent to
put forth all his skill, a well dissembled humility and carelessness
subdued the mortification and envy of the defeated competitor.
He was often permitted to accompany them in their hunting parties; and
here their habits and his circumstances alike invoked him to do his
best. They applauded his skill and success as a hunter, with no mixture
of envy or ill will. He was particularly fortunate in conciliating the
good will of the Shawnee chief. To attain this result, Boone not only
often presented him with a share of his game, but adopted the more
winning deportment of always affecting to treat his opinions and
counsels with deference. The chief, on his part, often took occasion to
speak of Boone as a most consummate proficient in hunting, and a warrior
of great bravery. Not long after his residence among them, he had
occasion to witness their manner of celebrating their victories, by
being an eye witness to one which commemorated the successful return of
a war party with some scalps.
Within a day's march of the village, the party dispatched a runner with
the joyful intelligence of their success, achieved without loss. Every
cabin in the village was immediately ordered to be swept perfectly
clean, with the religious intention to banish every source of pollution
that might mar the ceremony. The women, exceedingly fearful of
contributing in any way to this pollution, commenced an inveterate
sweeping, gathering up the collected dirt, and carefully placing it in a
heap behind the door. There it remained until the medicine man, or
priest, who presides over the powow, ordered them to remove it, and at
the same time every savage implement and utensil upon which the women
had laid their hands during the absence of the expedition.
Next day the party came in sight of the village, painted in alternate
compartments of red and black, their heads enveloped in swan's down, and
the centre of their crown, surmounted with long white feathers. They
advanced, singing their war song, and bearing the scalps on a verdant
branch of evergreen.
Arrived at the village, the chief who had led the party advanced before
his warriors to his winter cabin, encircling it in an order of march
contrary to the course of the sun, singing the war song after a
particular mode, sometimes on the ten or and sometimes on the bass key,
sometimes in high and shrill, and sometimes in deep and guttural notes.
The _waiter_, or servant of the leader, called _Etissu_, placed a couple
of blocks of wood near the war-pole, opposite the door of a circular
cabin, called the _hot-house_, in the centre of which was the council
fire. On these blocks he rested a kind of ark, deemed among their most
sacred things. While this was transacting the party were profoundly
silent. The chief bade all set down, and then inquired whether his cabin
was prepared and every thing unpolluted, according to the custom of
their fathers? After the answer, they rose up in concert and began the
war-whoop, walking slowly round the war-pole as they sung. All the
consecrated things were then carried, with no small show of solemnity,
into the hot-house. Here they remained three whole days and nights, in
separation from the rest of the people, applying warm ablutions to
their bodies, and sprinkling themselves with a decoction of snake root.
During a part of the time, the female relations of each of the
consecrated company, after having bathed, anointed, and drest themselves
in their finest apparel, stood, in two lines opposite the door, and
facing each other. This observance they kept up through the night,
uttering a peculiar, monotonous song, in a shrill voice for a minute;
then intermitting it about ten minutes, and resuming it again. When not
singing their silence was profound.
The chief, meanwhile, at intervals of about three hours, came out at the
head of his company, raised the war-whoop, and marched round the red
war-pole, holding in his right hand the pine or cedar boughs, on which
the scalps were attached, waving them backward and forward, and then
returned again. To these ceremonies they conformed without the slightest
interruption, during the whole three days' purification. To proceed with
the whole details of the ceremony to its close, would be tedious. We
close it, only adding, that a small twig of the evergreen was fixed upon
the roof of each one of their cabins, with a fragment of the scalps
attached to it, and this, as it appeared, to appease the ghosts of their
dead. When Boone asked them the meaning of all these long and tedious
ceremonies, they answered him by a word which literally imports "holy."
The leader and his waiter kept apart and continued the purification
three days longer, and the ceremony closed.
He observed, that when their war-parties returned from an expedition,
and had arrived near their village, they followed their file leader, in
what is called _Indian file_, one by one, each a few yards behind the
other, to give the procession an appearance of greater length and
dignity. If the expedition had been unsuccessful, and they had lost any
of their warriors, they returned without ceremony and in noiseless
sadness. But if they had been successful, they fired their guns in
platoons, yelling, whooping, and insulting their prisoners, if they had
made any. Near their town was a large square area, with a war-pole in
the centre, expressly prepared for such purposes. To this they fasten
their prisoners. They then advance to the house of their leader,
remaining without, and standing round his red war-pole, until they
determine concerning the fate of their prisoner. If any prisoner should
be fortunate enough to break from his pinions, and escape into the house
of the chief medicine man, or conductor of the powow, it is an
inviolable asylum, and by immemorial usage, the refugee is saved from
the fire.
Captives far advanced in life, or such as had been known to have shed
the blood of their tribe, were sure to atone for their decrepitude, or
past activity in shedding blood, by being burnt to death. They readily
know those Indians who have killed many, by the blue marks on their
breasts and arms, which indicate the number they have slain. These
hieroglyphics are to them as significant as our alphabetical characters.
The ink with which these characters are impressed, is a sort of
lampblack, prepared from the soot of burning pine, which they catch by
causing it to pass through a sort of greased funnel. Having prepared
this lampblack, they tattoo it into the skin, by punctures made with
thorns or the teeth of fish. The young prisoners, if they seem capable
of activity and service, and if they preserve an intrepid and unmoved
countenance, are generally spared, unless condemned to death by the
party, while undergoing the purification specified above. As soon as
their case is so decided, they are tied to the stake, one at a time. A
pair of bear-skin moccasins, with the hair outwards, are put on their
feet. They are stripped naked to the loins, and are pinioned firmly to
the stake.
Their subsequent punishment, in addition to the suffering of slow fire,
is left to the women. Such are the influences of their training, that
although the female nature, in all races of men, is generally found to
be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this case they appear to
surpass the men in the fury of their merciless rage, and the industrious
ingenuity of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle of long,
dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are attached splinters of
burning pine. As the victim is led to the stake, the women and children
begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as
they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their
gratification by unremitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their
tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to an
immediate close.
The signal for a more terrible infliction being given--the arms of the
victim are pinioned, and he is disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine
passed round his neck, allowing him a circle of about fifteen yards in
circumference, in which he can he made to march round his pole. They
knead tough clay on his head to secure the cranium from the effects of
the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Under the excitement
of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may
expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is
fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation
of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the
circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their
burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that
the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish. The warrior, in these
cases; goaded to fury, sweeps round the extent of his circle, kicking,
biting, and stamping with inconceivable fury. The throng of women and
children laugh, and fly from the circle, and fresh tormentors fill it
again. At other times the humor takes him to show them, that he can bear
all this, without a grimace, a spasm, or indication of suffering. In
this case, as we have seen, he smokes, derides, menaces, sings, and
shows his contempt, by calling them by the most reproachful of all
epithets--_old women_. When he falls insensible, they scalp and
dismember him, and the remainder of his body is consumed.
We have omitted many of these revolting details, many of the atrocious
features of this spectacle, as witnessed by Boone. While we read with
indignation and horror, let us not forget that savages have not alone
inflicted these detestable cruelties. Let us not forget that the
professed followers of Jesus Christ have given examples of a barbarity
equally unrelenting and horrible, in the form of religious persecution,
and avowedly to glorify God.
During Boone's captivity among the Shawnese, they took prisoner a noted
warrior of a western tribe, with which they were then at war. He was
condemned to the stake with the usual solemnities. Having endured the
preliminary tortures with the most fearless unconcern, he told them,
when preparing to commence a new series, with a countenance of scorn, he
could teach them how to make an enemy eat fire to some purpose; and
begged that they would give him an opportunity, together with a pipe and
tobacco. In respectful astonishment, at an unwonted demonstration of
invincible endurance, they granted his request. He lighted his pipe,
began to smoke, and sat down, all naked as he was, upon the burning
torches, which were blazing within his circle. Every muscle of his
countenance retained its composure. On viewing this, a noted warrior
sprang up, exclaiming, that this was a true warrior; that though his
nation was treacherous, and he had caused them many deaths, yet such was
their respect for true courage, that if the fire had not already spoiled
him, he should be spared. That being now impossible, he promised him the
merciful release of the tomahawk. He then held the terrible instrument
suspended some moments over his head, during all which time he was
seen neither to change his posture, move a muscle, or his countenance to
blench. The tomahawk fell, and the impassable warrior ceased to suffer.
[Illustration]
We shall close these details of the Shawnese customs, at the time when
Boone was prisoner among them, by giving his account of their ceremonies
at making peace. The chief warriors, who arrange the conditions of the
peace and subsequent friendship, first mutually eat and smoke together.
They then pledge each other in the sacred drink called _Cussena_. The
Shawnese then wave large fans of eagles' tails, and conclude with a
dance. The stranger warriors, who have come to receive the peace, select
half a dozen of their most active young men, surmounting their crowns
with swan's feathers, and painting their bodies with white clay. They
then place their file leader on the consecrated seat of what imports in
their language, the "beloved cabin." Afterwards they commence singing
the peace song, with an air of great solemnity. They begin to dance,
first in a prone or bowing posture. They then raise themselves erect,
look upwards, and wave their eagles' tails towards the sky, first with a
slow, and then with a quick and jerky motion. At the same time, they
strike their breast with a calabash fastened to a stick about a foot in
length, which they hold in their left hand, while they wave the eagles'
feathers with the right, and keep time by rattling pebbles in a gourd.
These ceremonies of peace-making they consider among their most solemn
duties; and to be perfectly accomplished in all the notes and gestures
is an indispensable acquirement to a thorough trained warrior.
Boone has related, at different times, many oral details of his private
and domestic life, and his modes of getting along in the family, of
which he was considered a member. He was perfectly trained to their
ways, could prepare their food, and perform any of their common domestic
operations with the best of them. He often accompanied them in their
hunting excursions, wandering with them over the extent of forest
between Chillicothe and lake Erie. These conversations presented curious
and most vivid pictures of their interior modes; their tasks of diurnal
labor and supply; their long and severe fasts; their gluttonous
indulgence, when they had food; and their reckless generosity and
hospitality, when they had any thing to bestow to travelling visitants.
To become, during this tedious captivity, perfectly acquainted with
their most interior domestic and diurnal manners, was not without
interest for a mind constituted like his. To make himself master of
their language, and to become familiarly acquainted with their customs,
he considered acquisitions of the highest utility in the future
operations, in which, notwithstanding his present duress, he hoped yet
to be beneficial to his beloved settlement of Kentucky.
Although the indulgence with which he was treated in the family, in
which he was adopted, and these acquisitions, uniting interest with
utility, tended to beguile the time of his captivity, it cannot be
doubted, that his sleeping and waking thoughts were incessantly occupied
with the chances of making his escape. An expedition was in
contemplation, by the tribe, to the salt licks on the Scioto, to make
salt. Boone dissembled indifference whether they took him with them, or
left him behind, with so much success, that, to his extreme joy, they
determined that he should accompany them. The expedition started on the
first day of June, 1778, and was occupied ten days in making salt.
During this expedition, he was frequently sent out to hunt, to furnish
provisions for the party; but always under such circumstances, that,
much as he had hoped to escape on this expedition, no opportunity
occurred, which he thought it prudent to embrace. He returned with the
party to Chillicothe, having derived only one advantage from the
journey, that of furnishing, by his making no attempt to escape, and by
his apparently cheerful return, new motives to convince the Indians,
that he was thoroughly domesticated among them, and had voluntarily
renounced his own race; a persuasion, which, by taking as much apparent
interest as any of them, in all their diurnal movements and plans, he
constantly labored to establish.
Soon after his return he attended a warrior-council, at which, in virtue
of being a member of one of the principal families, he had a right of
usage and prescription, to be present. It was composed of a hundred and
fifty of their bravest men, all painted and armed for an expedition,
which he found was intended against Boonesborough. It instantly
occurred to him, as a most fortunate circumstance, that he had not
escaped on the expedition to Scioto. Higher and more imperious motives,
than merely personal considerations, now determined him at every risk to
make the effort to escape, and prepare, if he might reach it, the
station for a vigorous defence, by forewarning it of what was in
preparation among the Indians.
The religious ceremonies of the council and preparation for the
expedition were as follow. One of the principal war chiefs announced the
intention of a party to commence an expedition against Boonesborough.
This he did by beating their drum, and marching with their war standard
three times round the council-house. On this the council dissolved, and
a sufficient number of warriors supplied themselves with arms, and a
quantity of parched corn flour, as a supply of food for the expedition.
All who had volunteered to join in it, then adjourned to their "winter
house," and drank the war-drink, a decoction of bitter herbs and roots,
for three days--preserving in other respects an almost unbroken fast.
This is considered to be an act tending to propitiate the Great Spirit
to prosper their expedition. During this period of purifying themselves,
they were not allowed to sit down, or even lean upon a tree, however
fatigued, until after sun-set. If a bear or deer even passed in sight,
custom forbade them from killing it for refreshment. The more rigidly
punctual they are in the observance of these rights, the more
confidently they expect success.
While the young warriors were under this probation, the aged ones,
experienced in the usages of their ancestors, watched them most narrowly
to see that, from irreligion, or hunger, or recklessness, they did not
violate any of the transmitted religious rites, and thus bring the wrath
of the Great Spirit upon the expedition. Boone himself, as a person
naturally under suspicion of having a swerving of inclination towards
the station to be assailed, was obliged to observe the fast with the
most rigorous exactness. During the three days' process of purification,
he was not once allowed to go out of the medicine or sanctified ground,
without a trusty guard, lest hunger or indifference to their laws should
tempt him to violate them.
When the fast and purification was complete, they were compelled to set
forth, prepared or unprepared, be the weather fair or foul. Accordingly,
when the time arrived, they fired their guns, whooped, and danced, and
sung--and continued firing their guns before them on the commencement of
their route. The leading war-chief marched first, carrying their
medicine bag, or budget of holy things. The rest followed in Indian
file, at intervals of three or four paces behind each other, now and
then chiming the war-whoop in concert.
They advanced in this order until they were out of sight and hearing of
the village. As soon as they reached the deep woods, all became as
silent as death. This silence they inculcate, that their ears may be
quick to catch the least portent of danger.
Every one acquainted with the race, has remarked their intense keenness
of vision. Their eyes, for acuteness, and capability of discerning
distant objects, resemble those of the eagle or the lynx; and their
cat-like tread among the grass and leaves, seems so light as scarcely to
shake off the dew drops. Thus they advance on their expedition rapidly
and in profound silence, unless some one of the party should relate that
he has had an unpropitious dream When this happens, an immediate arrest
is put upon the expedition, and the whole party face about, and return
without any sense of shame or mortification. A whole party is thus often
arrested by a single person; and their return is applauded by the tribe,
as a respectful docility to the divine impulse, as they deem it, from
the Great Spirit. These dreams are universally reverenced, as the
warnings of the guardian spirits of the tribe. There is in that country
a sparrow, of an uncommon species, and not often seen. This bird is
called in the Shawnese dialect by a name importing "kind messenger,"
which they deem always a true omen, whenever it appears, of bad news.
They are exceedingly intimidated whenever this bird sings near them; and
were it to perch and sing over their war-camp, the whole party would
instantly disperse in consternation and dismay.
Every chief has his warrior, Etissu, or waiter, to attend on him and his
party. This confidential personage has charge of every thing that is
eaten or drank during the expedition. He parcels it out by rules of
rigid abstemiousness. Though each warrior carries on his back all his
travelling conveniences, and his food among the rest, yet, however keen
the appetite sharpened by hunger, however burning the thirst, no one
dares relieve his hunger or thirst, until his rations are dispensed to
him by the Etissu.
Boone had occasion to have all these rites most painfully impressed on
his memory; for he was obliged to conform to them with the rest. One
single thought occupied his mind--to seize the right occasion to escape.
It was sometime before it offered. At length a deer came in sight. He
had a portion of his unfinished breakfast in his hand. He expressed a
desire to pursue the deer. The party consented. As soon as he was out of
sight, he instantly turned his course towards Boonesborough. Aware that
he should be pursued by enemies as keen on the scent as bloodhounds, he
put forth his whole amount of backwoods skill, in doubling in his track,
walking in the water, and availing himself of every imaginable expedient
to throw them off his trail. His unfinished fragment of his breakfast
was his only food, except roots and berries, during this escape for his
life, through unknown forests and pathless swamps, and across numerous
rivers, spreading in an extent of more than two hundred miles. Every
forest sound must have struck his ear, as a harbinger of the approaching
Indians.
No spirit but such an one as his, could have sustained the apprehension
and fatigue. No mind but one guided by the intuition of instinctive
sagacity, could have so enabled him to conceal his trail, and find his
way. But he evaded their pursuit. He discovered his way. He found in
roots, in barks, and berries, together with what a single shot of his
rifle afforded, wherewith to sustain the cravings of nature. Travelling
night and day, in an incredible short space of time he was in the arms
of his friends at Boonesborough, experiencing a reception, after such a
long and hopeless absence, as words would in vain attempt to portray.