"
It was not easy to keep them fed. Rations would be served to them for a
week; they would consume them in three days, and come for more. On one
occasion they took the matter into their own hands, and butchered and
devoured eighteen head of cattle intended for the troops; nor did any
officer dare oppose this "St. Bartholomew of the oxen," as Bougainville
calls it. "Their paradise is to be drunk," says the young officer. Their
paradise was rather a hell; for sometimes, when mad with brandy, they
grappled and tore each other with their teeth like wolves. They were
continually "making medicine," that is, consulting the Manitou, to whom
they hung up offerings, sometimes a dead dog, and sometimes the
belt-cloth which formed their only garment.
The Mission Indians were better allies than these heathen of the west;
and their priests, who followed them to the war, had great influence
over them. They were armed with guns, which they well knew how to use.
Their dress, though savage, was generally decent, and they were not
cannibals; though in other respects they retained all their traditional
ferocity and most of their traditional habits. They held frequent
war-feasts, one of which is described by Roubaud, Jesuit missionary of
the Abenakis of St. Francis, whose flock formed a part of the company
present.
"Imagine," says the father, "a great assembly of savages adorned with
every ornament most suited to disfigure them in European eyes, painted
with vermilion, white, green, yellow, and black made of soot and the
scrapings of pots.
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