[6]We’ll leave our clubs, dew’d with their country show’rs, And, if they dare to bring them back to our’s, Their painted scalps shall be a step to fame, And grace our own and glorious country’s name. Or if we warriors spare the yielding foe, Torments at home the wretch must undergo[7].
As the Indians fight naked, the vanquished are constrained to endure the rigours of the weather in their flight, and live upon roots and fruit, as they throw down their arms to accelerate their flight thro’ the woods.
It is the custom of the Indians, to leave a club, something of the form of a cricket-bat, but with their warlike exploits engraved on it, in their enemy’s country, and the enemy accepts the defiance, by bringing this back to their country.
The prisoners of war are generally tortured by the women, at the party’s return, to revenge the death of those that have perished by the wretch’s countrymen. This savage custom has been so much mitigated of late, that the prisoners were only compelled to marry, and then generally allowed all the privileges of the natives. This lenity, however, has been a detriment to the nation; for many of these returning to their countrymen, have made them acquainted with the country-passes, weakness, and haunts of the Cherokees; besides that it gave the enemy greater courage to fight against them.
But when we go, who knows which shall return, When growing dangers rise with each new morn? Farewel, ye little ones, ye tender wives, For you alone we would conserve our lives! But cease to mourn, ’tis unavailing pain, If not fore-doom’d, we soon shall meet again. But, O ye friends! in case your comrades fall, Think that on you our deaths for vengeance call; With uprais’d tommahawkes pursue our blood, And stain, with hostile streams, the conscious wood, That pointing enemies may never tell The boasted place where we, their victims, fell[8].
Their custom is generally to engrave their victory on some neighbouring tree, or set up some token of it near the field of battle; to this their enemies are here supposed to point to, as boasting their victory over them, and the slaughter that they made.
Both the ideas and verse are very loose in the original, and they are set to as loose a music, many composing both tunes and song off hand, according to the occasion; tho’ some tunes, especially those taken from the northern Indians, are extremely pretty, and very like the Scotch.