Note 53 — Chapter VI · THE FINDING OF STRANGE COASTS.

Footnote 53: "Women and children joined in these fiendish atrocities, and when at length the victim yielded up his life, his heart, if he were brave, was ripped from his body, cut in pieces, broiled, and given to the young men, under the belief that it would increase their courage; they drank his blood, thinking it would make them more wary; and finally his body was divided limb from limb, roasted or thrown into the seething pot, and hands and feet, arms and legs, head and trunk, were all stewed into a horrid mess and eaten amidst yells, songs, and dances." Jeffries Wyman, in Seventh Report of Peabody Museum, p. 37. For details of the most appalling character, see Butterfield's History of the Girtys, pp. 176-182; Stone's Life of Joseph Brant, vol. ii. pp. 31, 32; Dodge's Plains of the Great West, p. 418, and Our Wild Indians, pp. 525-529; Parkman's Jesuits in North America, pp. 387-391; and many other places in Parkman's writings.[Back to Main Text]