il made of
handkerchiefs and pieces of gunny-cloth or jute, forming irregular
stripes, I am told these Indians commonly have pieces of squared
timber, not unlike a three-inch plank, high and broad, perforated to
shoot arrows through; this is fixed on the bow of the war canoe to
serve as bulwarks in battle."

Canoe voyages were mainly embarked on for trading; but in all
probability before the coming of the European there was little trading
done between one tribe and another, except in the region _west_ of the
Rocky Mountains, in which--especially to the north--the Amerindians
were so different in their habits and customs from those dwelling east
of the mountains as to suggest that they must very occasionally have
been in touch with some world outside America, such as Hawaii,
Kamschatka, or Japan. In these Pacific coastlands they used a white
seashell as a currency and a medium of exchange. So also did the
Iroquois people and the southern Algonkin tribes, in the form of
"wampum". The principal articles of barter were skins of fur animals,
porcupine quills, dogs, slaves, and women.

First Hunting (to supply food), then Trading in the products of the
chase, and lastly War were the main subjects which occupied the
Amerindian's thoughts before the middle of the nineteenth century.
They usually went to war to turn other tribes out of profitable
hunting grounds or productive fisheries; or because they wanted slaves
or more wives; or because a chief or a medicine man had a dream; or
because some other notability felt he had given way too much to tears
over some personal or public sorrow, and must show his manliness by
killing the people of another tribe. In their wars they knew no mercy
when their blood was up, and frequently perpetrated frightful
cruelties for the sheer pleasure of seeing human suffering. Yet these
devilish moods would alternate with fits of sentimentality. A man or a
woman would suddenly take a war prisoner, or a person who was wounded
or half-tortured to death, under their protection, and a short time
afterwards the whole war party would be greeting this rescued wretch
(usually a man--they were far more pitiless towards women) as brother,
son, or friend, and even become quite maudlin over a scratch or a
bruise; whereas an hour or so before they were on the point of
disembowelling, or of driving splinters up the nails and setting them
on fire. In warfare they often gave way to cannibalism.

Though extremel