Two important facts are here made perfectly plain; viz. that the original Indian name of the lake was _Andtatarocté_, and that the French named it Lac du Saint Sacrement because they arrived on its shores on the eve of the festival celebrated in honor of the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. Notwithstanding this very plain statement, it has been affirmed without any historical foundation whatever, that the original Indian name of this lake was _Horican_, and that the Jesuit missionaries, having selected it for the typical purification of baptism on account of its limpid waters, named it _Lac du Saint Sacrement_. This perversion of history originated in the extraordinary declaration of Mr. James Fenimore Cooper, in his novel entitled "The Last of the Mohicans," in which these two erroneous statements are given as veritable history. This new discovery by Cooper was heralded by the public journals, scholars were deceived, and the bold imposition was so successful that it was even introduced into a meritorious poem in which the Horican of the ancient tribes and the baptismal waters of the limpid lake are handled with skill and effect. Twenty-five years after the writing of his novel, Mr. Cooper's conscience began seriously to trouble him, and he publicly confessed, in a preface to "The Last of the Mohicans," that the name Horican had been first applied to the lake by himself, and without any historical authority. He is silent as to the reason he had assigned for the French name of the lake, which was probably an assumption growing out of his ignorance of its meaning--_Vide The Last of The Mohicans_, by J. Fenimore Cooper, Gregory's ed., New York, 1864, pp ix-x and 12.
64. "There are certain general customs which mark the California Indians, as, the non-use of torture on prisoners of war," &c.--_Vide The Tribes of California_, by Stephen Powers, in _Contributions to North American Ethnology_, Vol. III. p. 15. _Tribes of Washington and Oregon_, by George Gibbs, _idem_, Vol. I. p. 192.
65. "It has been erroneously asserted that the practice of scalping did not prevail among the Indians before the advent of Europeans. In 1535, Cartier saw five scalps at Quebec, dried and stretched on hoops. In 1564, Laudonniere saw them among the Indians of Florida. The Algonquins of New England and Nova Scotia were accustomed to cut off and carry away the head, which they afterwards scalped. Those of Canada, it seems, sometimes scalped the dead bodies on the field. The Algonquin practice of carrying off heads as trophies is mentioned by Lalemant, Roger Williams, Lescarbot, and Champlain."--_Vide Pioneers of France in the New World_, by Francis Parkman, Boston, 1874, p. 322. The practice of the tribes on the Pacific coast is different "In war they do not take scalps, but decapitate the slain and bring in the heads as trophies."--_Contributions to Am. Ethnology_, by Stephen Powers, Washington, 1877, Vol. III. pp. 21, 221. _Vide_ Vol. I. p. 192. The Yuki are an exception. Vol. III. p. 129.