Chapter XXIV: Appendix (20)

The warriors have another favourite game, called _Chungke_;[239] which, with propriety of language, may be called “Running hard labour.” They {401} have near their state house, a square piece of ground well cleaned, and fine sand is carefully strewed over it, when requisite, to promote a swifter motion to what they throw along the surface. Only one, or two on a side, play at this ancient game. They have a stone[240] about two fingers broad at the edge, and two spans round: each party has a pole of about eight feet long, smooth, and tapering at each end, the points flat. They set off a-breast of each other at six yards from the end of the play ground; then one of them hurls the stone on its edge, in as direct a line as he can, a considerable distance toward the middle of the other end of the square: when they have ran a few yards, each darts his pole anointed with bear’s oil, with a proper force, as near as he can guess in proportion to the motion of the stone, that the end may lie close to the stone—when this is the case, the person counts two of the game, and, in proportion to the nearness of the poles to the mark, one is counted, unless by measuring, both are found to be at an equal distance from the stone. In this manner, the players will keep running most part of the day, at half speed, under the violent heat of the sun, staking their silver ornaments, their nose, finger, and ear rings; their breast, arm, and wrist plates, and even all their wearing apparel, except that which barely covers their middle. All the American Indians are much addicted to this game, which to us appears to be a task of stupid drudgery: it seems however to be of early origin, when their fore-fathers used diversions as simple as their manners. The hurling stones they use at present, were time immemorial rubbed smooth on the rocks, and with prodigious labour; they are kept with the strictest religious care, from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the dead. They belong to the town where they are used, and are carefully preserved.

Their manner of rambling through the woods to kill deer, is a very laborious exercise, as they frequently walk twenty-five or thirty miles through rough and smooth grounds, and fasting, before they return back to camp, loaded. Their method of fishing may be placed among their diversions, but this is of the profitable kind. When they see large fish near the surface of the water, they fire directly upon them, sometimes only with powder, which noise and surprize however so stupifies them, that they instantly turn up their bellies and float a top, when the fisherman secures them. If they shoot at fish not deep in the water, either with an arrow or bullet, they aim {402} at the lower part of the belly, if they are near; and lower, in like manner, according to the distance, which seldom fails of killing. In a dry summer season, they gather horse chestnuts, and different sorts of roots, which having pounded pretty fine, and steeped a while in a trough, they scatter this mixture over the surface of a middle-sized pond, and stir it about with poles, till the water is sufficiently impregnated with the intoxicating bittern. The fish are soon inebriated, and make to the surface of the water, with their bellies uppermost. The fishers gather them in baskets, and barbicue the largest, covering them carefully over at night to preserve them from the supposed putrifying influence of the moon. It seems, that fish catched in this manner, are not poisoned, but only stupified; for they prove very wholesome food to us, who frequently use them. By experiments, when they are speedily moved into good water, they revive in a few minutes.

The Indians have the art of catching fish in long crails,[241] made with canes and hiccory splinters, tapering to a point. They lay these at a fall of water, where stones are placed in two sloping lines from each bank, till they meet together in the middle of the rapid stream, where the intangled fish are soon drowned. Above such a place, I have known them to fasten a wreath of long grape vines together, to reach across the river, with stones fastened at proper distances to rake the bottom; they will swim a mile with it whooping, and plunging all the way, driving the fish before them into their large cane pots. With this draught, which is a very heavy one, they make a town feast, or feast of love, of which every one partakes in the most social manner, and afterward they dance together, singing _Halelu-yah_, and the rest of their usual praises to the divine essence, for his bountiful gifts to the beloved people. Those Indians who are unacquainted with the use of barbed irons, are very expert in striking large fish out of their canoes, with long sharp pointed green canes,[242] which are well bearded, and hardened in the fire. In Savanah river, I have often accompanied them in killing sturgeons with those green swamp harpoons, and which they did with much pleasure and ease; for, when we discovered the fish, we soon thrust into their bodies one of the harpoons. As the fish would immediately strike deep, and rush away to the bottom very rapidly, their strength was soon expended, by their violent struggles against the buoyant force of the green darts: as soon as the top end of them appeared again on the surface {403} of the water, we made up to them, renewed the attack, and in like manner continued it, till we secured our game.

They have a surprising method of fishing under the edges of rocks, that 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.

The traders hot-houses are appropriated to their young-rising prolific family, and their well-pleased attendants, who are always as kindly treated as brethren; and their various buildings, are like towers in cities, beyond the common size of those of the Indians. Before the Indians were corrupted by mercenary empirics, their good sense led them to esteem the traders among them as their second sun, warming their backs with the British fleeces, and keeping in their candle of life both by plentiful support, and continual protection and safety, from the fire-arms and ammunition which they annually brought to them. While the Indians were simple in manners, and uncorrupt in morals, the traders could not be reckoned unhappy; for they were kindly treated, and watchfully guarded, by a society of friendly and sagacious people, and possessed all the needful things to make a reasonable life easy. Through all the Indian countries, every person lives at his own choice, not being forced in the least degree to any thing contrary to his own inclination. Before that most impolitic step of giving general licences took place, only a sufficient number of orderly reputable traders were allowed to traffic, and reside among the Indians: by which means the last were kept under proper restraint, were easy in their minds, and peaceable, on account of the plain honest lessons daily inculcated on them. But at present, most of their countries swarm with white people, who are generally the dregs and off-scourings of our colonies. The description is so exceedingly disagreeable, that I shall only observe, the greater part of them could notably distinguish themselves, among the most profligate {413} by land or sea, no day of the week excepted, indeed the sabbath day is the worst. This is the true situation of our Indian affairs,—the unavoidable result of ignorant and wicked clergymen settled as Missionaries on the frontiers; and of that pernicious practice of general licences, by which crowds of disorderly people infest the Indian countries, corrupt their morals, and put their civilization out of the power of common means: the worst and meanest may readily get nominal security to intitle them to a trading licence; and ill uses are made of them with impunity.[254]

Till of late years, the honest traders[255] lived among the Indians in the greatest plenty. They abounded with hogs, which made very firm streaked bacon, and much preferable to that in the English settlements chiefly owing to the acorns and hiccory-nuts they feed on: but the Indians are now grown so proud and lazy, by having goods too cheap and plenty, that very few raise any. There are at least five times the number of trading houses in all the western Indian nations, since general licences, through the wisdom of our civil rulers, were first granted, than was formerly, while experience directed South-Carolina to pursue and enforce proper measures. Such a number of lewd, idle white savages are very hurtful to the honest part of the traders, by heightening the value of vegetables, especially in the time of light crops, to an exorbitant price; for by inebriating the Indians with their nominally prohibited, and poisoning spirits, they purchase the necessaries of life, at four or five hundred per cent cheaper, than the orderly traders; which is a great check to the few who have a love to the welfare of their country, and strictly observe the laws of trade. Besides, those men decoy the intoxicated savages to defraud the old fair dealer every winter, of many thousand pounds of dried deer-skins, by the enchanting force of liquors, which, on account of their indolence and improvident disposition, interest absolutely required him to credit them for: but when at the end of their mad career, they open their distracted eyes, and bitterly inveigh against the tempting authors of their nakedness, then there is the same necessity of trusting them a-new for the next season’s hunt, and likewise the same improbability, either of better success, or any sort of redress; for family jobs must not be interrupted or retarded on any account. {414}

The industrious old traders have still a plenty of hogs, which they raise in folds, mostly on the weeds of the fields during the whole time the crops are in the ground; likewise some hundreds of fowls at once,—plenty of venison,—the dried flesh of bears and buffalos,—wild turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons, during the proper season of their being fat and plenty; for the former sort of fowls are lean in the summer, and the others are in these moderate climates only during the winter, for they return northward with the sun. The buffalos are now become scarce,[256] as the thoughtless and wasteful Indians used to kill great numbers of them, only for the tongues and marrow-bones, leaving the rest of the carcases to the wild beasts. The traders commonly make bacon of the bears in winter; but the Indians mostly flay off a thick tier of fat which lies over the flesh,[257] and the latter they cut up into small pieces, and thrust them on reeds, or suckers of sweet-tasted hiccory or sassafras, which they barbecue over a slow fire. The fat they fry into clear well-tasted oil, mixing plenty of sassafras and wild cinnamon with it over the fire, which keeps sweet from one winter to another, in large earthen jars, covered in the ground. It is of a light digestion, and nutritive to hair. All who are acquainted with its qualities, prefer it to any oil, for any use whatsoever: smooth Florence is not to be compared in this respect with rough America.

I have known gentlemen of the nicest taste, who on the beginning of their first trip into the Indian country, were so greatly prejudiced against eating bears-flesh, that they vehemently protested, they would as soon eat part of a barbecued rib of a wolf, or any other beast of prey, as a spare-rib of a young bear; but, by the help of a good appetite, which their exercise and change of air procured, they ventured to taste a little: and presently they fed on it more plentifully than others, to make up the loss they had sustained by their former squeamishness and neglect. In the spring of the year, bear-bacon is a favorite dish with the traders, along with herbs that the woods afford in plenty; especially with the young tops of poke, the root of which is a very strong poison. And this method they pursue year by year, as a physical regimen, in order to purge their blood.

Buffalo flesh is nothing but beef of a coarser grain,[258] though of a sweeter taste than the tame sort: elk-flesh has the like affinity to venison. The deer {415} are very fat in winter, by reason of the great quantities of chestnuts, and various sorts of acorns, that cover the boundless woods. Though most of the traders who go to the remote Indian countries, have tame stock, as already described, and are very expert at fire-arms and ranging the woods a hunting; yet every servant that each of them fits out for the winter’s hunt, brings home to his master a large heap of fat barbecued briskets, rumps, and tongues of buffalo and deer, as well as plenty of bear-ribs, which are piled on large racks: these are laid up and used not for necessity, but for the sake of variety. The traders carry up also plenty of chocolate, coffee, and sugar, which enables them with their numberless quantity of fowls-eggs, fruit, &c. to have puddings, pyes, pastries, fritters, and many other articles of the like kind, in as great plenty, as in the English settlements. Several of the Indians produce sugar out of the sweet maple-tree, by making an incision, draining the juice, and boiling it to a proper consistence.

Though in most of the Indian nations, the water is good, because of their high situation, yet the traders very seldom drink any of it at home; for the women beat in mortars their flinty corn, till all husks are taken off, which having well sifted and fanned, they boil in large earthen pots; then straining off the thinnest part into a pot, they mix it with cold water, till it is sufficiently liquid for drinking: and when cold, it is both pleasant and very nourishing; and is much liked even by the genteel strangers. The Indians always used mortars,[259] instead of mills, and they had them, with almost every other convenience, when we first opened a trade with them—they cautiously burned a large log, to a proper level and length, placed fire a-top, and wet mortar round it, in order to give the utensil a proper form: and when the fire was extinguished, or occasion required, they chopped the inside with their stone-instruments, patiently continuing the slow process, till they finished the machine to the intended purpose. I have the pleasure of writing this by the side of a Chikkasah female, as great a princess[260] as ever lived among the ancient Peruvians, or Mexicans, and she bids me be sure not to mark the paper wrong, after the manner of most of the traders; otherwise, it will spoil the making good bread, or hommony, and of course beget the ill-will of our white women. {416}

I shall now describe their method of building houses to secure themselves and their food from injury—They are a very dilatory people, and noted for procrastinating every thing that admits of the least delay: but they are the readiest, and quickest of all people in going to shed blood, and returning home; whence the traders say, “that an Indian is never in haste, only when the devil is at his arse.” This proverb is fully verified by their method of building; for while the memory of the bleak pinching winds lasts, and they are covered with their winter-blackened skins, they turn out early in the spring, to strip clap-boards and cypress-bark, for the covering of their houses: but in proportion as the sun advances, they usually desist from their undertaking during that favourable season; saying, “that in the time of warm weather, they generally plant in the fields, or go to war; and that building houses in the troublesome hot summer, is a needless and foolish affair, as it occasions much sweating,”—which is the most offensive thing in life to every red warrior of manly principles. On this account, if we except the women chopping firewood for daily use, it is as rare to hear the sound of an ax in their countries, as if they lived under the unhospitable torrid zone; or were nearly related to the South-American animal Pigritia, that makes two or three days journey in going up a tree, and is as long in returning. When the cold weather approaches, they return to their work, and necessity forces them then to perform what a timely precaution might have executed with much more ease. When they build, the whole town, and frequently the nearest of their tribe in neighbouring towns, assist one another, well knowing that many hands make speedy work of that, which would have discouraged any of them from ever attempting by himself. In one day, they build, daub with their tough mortar mixed with dry grass, and thoroughly finish, a good commodious house.

They first trace the dimensions of the intended fabric, and every one has his task prescribed him after the exactest manner. In a few hours they get the timber ready from the stump: every piece being marked, it is readily applied to the proper place, in a great hurry, and so very secure, as if it were to screen them from an approaching hurricane. Notwithstanding they build in this hasty manner, their houses are commonly genteel and convenient. For their summer houses, they generally fix strong posts of pitch-pine deep in the ground, which will last for several ages—The trees of dried locust, and sassafras, are likewise very durable. {417} The posts are of an equal height; and the wall-plates are placed on top of these, in notches. Then they sink a large post in the center of each gable end, and another in the middle of the house where the partition is to be, in order to support the roof-tree; to these they tie the rafters with broad splinters of white oak, or hiccory, unless they make choice of such long sapplings, as will reach from side to side over the ridge hole, which, with a proper notch in the middle of each of them, and bound as the other sort, lie very secure. Above those, they fix either split sapplings, or three large winter canes together, at proper distances, well tied. Again, they place above the wall-plates of both sides the house, a sufficient number of strong crooks to bear up the eave-boards: and they fasten each of them, both to one of the rafters and the wall-plate, with the bandages before described. As the poplar tree is very soft, they make their eave-boards of it, with their small hatchets: having placed one on each side, upon the crooks, exceeding the length of the house, and jutting a foot beyond the wall, they cover the fabric with pine, or cypress clap-boards, which they can split readily; and crown the work with the bark of the same trees, all of a proper length and breadth, which they had before provided. In order to secure this covering from the force of the high winds, they put a sufficient number of long split sapplings above the covering of each side, from end to end, and tie them fast to the end of the laths. Then they place heavy logs above, resting on the eave-boards, opposite to each crook, which overlap each other on the opposite sides, about two feet a-top, whereon they fix a convenient log, and tie them together, as well as the laths to the former, which bind it together, and thus the fabric becomes a savage philosopher’s castle, the side and gables of which are bullet proof. The barrier towns cut port holes in those summer houses, daubing them over with clay, so as an enemy cannot discover them on the outside;—they draw a circle round each of them in the inside of the house, and when they are attacked, they open their port holes in a trice, and fall to work. But those, that live more at ease, indulge themselves accordingly. Herein, they teach us to secure our barrier settlements with proper places of defence, before we flatter ourselves with the uncertain hope of reaping what we plant, or grow fond of the showy parts of life. When the British empire hath a sufficient plenty of strong frontier garrisons to protect such as the weak, and valuable colony of West Florida, fine and well furnished houses will soon rise of course. The Indians always make their doors of poplar, because the timber is large, {418} and very light when seasoned, as well as easy to be hewed; they cut the tree to a proper length, and split it with a maul and hard wooden wedges, when they have indented it a little, in convenient places with their small hatchets. They often make a door of one plank in breadth, but, when it requires two planks, they fix two or three cross bars to the inner side, at a proper distance, and bore each of them with a piece of an old gun barrel, heated and battered for the purpose, and sew them together with straps of a shaved and wet buffalo hide, which tightens as it dries, and it is almost as strong as if it were done with long nails, riveted in the usual manner. Thus, they finish their summer house of pleasure, without any kind of iron, or working tools whatsoever, except a small hatchet of iron (that formerly was a long sharpened stone) and a knife; which plainly shews them to be ingenious, and capable of attaining all the liberal arts and sciences, under a proper cultivation.

The clothing of the Indians being very light, they provide themselves for the winter with hot-houses, whose properties are to retain, and reflect the heat, after the manner of the Dutch stoves. To raise these, they fix deep in the ground, a sufficient number of strong forked posts, at a proportional distance, in a circular form, all of an equal height, about five or six feet above the surface of the ground: above these, they tie very securely large pieces of the heart of white oak, which are of a tough flexible nature, interweaving this orbit, from top to bottom, with pieces of the same, or the like timber. Then, in the middle of the fabric they fix very deep in the ground, four large pine posts, in a quadrangular form, notched a-top, on which they lay a number of heavy logs, let into each other, and rounding gradually to the top. Above this huge pile, to the very top, they lay a number of long dry poles, all properly notched, to keep strong hold of the under posts and wall-plate. Then they weave them thick with their split sapplings, and daub them all over about six or seven inches thick with tough clay, well mixt with withered grass: when this cement is half dried, they thatch the house with the longest sort of dry grass, that their land produces. They first lay on one round tier, placing a split sappling a-top, well tied to different parts of the under pieces of timber, about fifteen inches below the eave: and, in this manner, they proceed circularly to the very spire, where commonly a pole is fixed, that displays on the top the figure of a large carved eagle. At a small distance {419} below which, four heavy logs are strongly tied together across, in a quadrangular form, in order to secure the roof from the power of envious blasts. The door of this winter palace, is commonly about four feet high, and so narrow as not to admit two to enter it abreast, with a winding passage for the space of six or seven feet, to secure themselves both from the power of the bleak winds, and of an invading enemy. As they usually build on rising ground, the floor is often a yard lower than the earth, which serves them as a breast work against an enemy: and a small peeping window is level with the surface of the outside ground, to enable them to rake any lurking invaders in case of an attack. As they have no metal to reflect the heat; in the fall of the year, as soon as the sun begins to lose his warming power, some of the women make a large fire of dry wood, with which they chiefly provide themselves, but only from day to day, through their thoughtlessness of to-morrow. When the fire is a little more than half burnt down, they cover it over with ashes, and, as the heat declines, they strike off some of the top embers, with a long cane, wherewith each of the couches, or broad seats, is constantly provided; and this method they pursue from time to time as need requires, till the fire is expended, which is commonly about day-light. While the new fire is burning down, the house, for want of windows and air, is full of hot smoky darkness; and all this time, a number of them lie on their broad bed places, with their heads wrapped up.

The inside of their houses is furnished with genteel couches to sit, and lie upon, raised on four forks of timber of a proper height, to give the swarming fleas some trouble in their attack, as they are not able to reach them at one spring: they tie with fine white oak splinters, a sufficient quantity of middle-sized canes of proper dimensions, to three or four bars of the same sort, which they fasten above the frame; and they put their mattresses a-top, which are made of long cane splinters. Their bedding consists of the skins of wild beasts, such as of buffalos, panthers, bears, elks, and deer, which they dress with the hair on, as soft as velvet. Their male children they chuse to raise on the skins of panthers, on account of the communicative principle, which they reckon all nature is possest of, in conveying qualities according to the regimen that is followed: and, as the panther is endued with many qualities, beyond any of his fellow animals in the American woods, as smelling, strength, cunning, {420} and a prodigious spring, they reckon such a bed is the first rudiments of war. But it is worthy of notice, they change the regimen in nurturing their young females; these they lay on the skins of fawns, or buffalo calves, because they are shy and timorous: and, if the mother be indisposed by sickness, her nearest female relation suckles the child, but only till she recovers. This practice gives a friendly lesson to such mothers, who, ostrich like, as soon as the tender infant sucks in the first breath of air, commit it to the swarthy breasts of a fœtid African to graft it on her gross stock.

Their stools they cut out of poplar wood, all of one piece, and of a convenient height and shape. Their chests are made of clapboards sewed to cross bars with scraped wet buffalo strings. Their domestic utensils consist of earthen pots, pans, jugs, mugs, jars, &c. of various antiquated sorts, which would have puzzled Adam, to have given them significant names. Their wooden dishes, and spoons made of wood and buffalo horn, shew something of a newer invention and date, being of nicer workmanship, for the sculpture of the last is plain, and represents things that are within the reach of their own ideas.