Old chiefs were seated at the back of the council-house, and of the four houses of the square. They had sharp instruments,--sail-needles, awls, and flints. Children of from four to twelve, and youths, and young men, presented their limbs, and the instrument was plunged into the thighs and the calves of the legs, and drawn down in long, straight lines. As the blood streamed, the wounded would scoop it up with bark or sticks, and dash it against the back of the building; and all the building thus became clotted with gore. The glory of the exercise seemed to be to submit without flinching, without even consciousness. The youngest children would sometimes show the most extraordinary self-control. All offered themselves to the experiment voluntarily. If a shudder were detected, the old chiefs gashed deeper. But where they saw entire firmness, an involuntary glow of admiration would flit over their stony faces.
We now left, and went to an infant town--and a savage infant it seemed--over the river to break our fast,--an indulgence which to our Indian friends is not permitted. They may neither eat nor sleep until the ceremonies close. The town we went to is named Talassee. It has but about a dozen houses as yet, but is delightfully situated, and I should not wonder to see a large place there in another twelvemonth. It belongs to the region of a clan different from the one we left, though part of the same tribe. Here the investigating agent held his court; and the place was crowded with drunken Indians, and more uncivilized speculators, parading about, as some had done among the spectators at the festival, with blacked eyes and lacerated faces,--the trophies of _civil_ war for _savage_ plunder. At the house where we dined, I found the landlady and her family implacable Indian haters. I was afterwards told the cause. Her husband is continually marrying Indian wives,--probably to entitle himself to their lands. He, being a _sneezer_, and keeping a tavern, is a great man among them. I saw a very comely young squaw promenading, who believed herself to be one of the _sneezer-chubco-mico's_ last wives. The man's white and original wife and daughters made an excuse to walk by, to have a look at the aboriginal interloper. The latter had just received from my landlord a present of a pair of gaudy bracelets, for which he had paid eighteen dollars at another _sneezer's_,--bracelets worth about four. I was told how the man came by this red mate of his. He had taken a young chiefs wife in her husband's absence. The chief, returning while my landlord was absent, got his young wife back. The landlord, on reappearing, is said to have threatened the chief with General Jackson and big guns. The chief said he was partial to his wife; but he had a sister much prettier, and, for the sake of peace, if nothing were said about the matter, Mr. Landlord should have her for a wife. The bargain was struck. The handsome little squaw I have spoken of is that same young chief's sister. This stealing of wives is beginning to excite some commotion. I heard that there had been a council of chiefs in the neighborhood of Talassee. It was a very animated one, and the wrong of wife-stealing was violently discussed. It was thought by some almost as bad as land-stealing. Others felt rather relieved by it. One of the drunken Indians whom I saw reeling and whooping about, as I stood at the door of the log hut where we dined, seemed of the latter party. I asked a _linkister_ the meaning of a song the Indian was singing with such glee. The black _linkister_ laughed, and was reluctant to explain; but when I pressed him, the following proved to be the meaning of the burthen:--