More complex were what came to be called “mourning wars.” Many
Indian societies, particularly the Iroquois group, believed that a fallen war-
rior must be both mourned and replaced. By all reports, the Indians
mourned the fallen more deeply, indeed more bitterly, than perhaps any
other society. Friends and relatives made every attempt to lessen the pain
with condolence ceremonies, feasts, and the giving of presents. If these did
not cover the loss, the society raided another Indian or white group for
captives. Some captives were adopted but others were cruelly tortured to
assuage the pain of the bereaved. Captives were first made to run a gauntlet
that tested their morale and physical well-being. “Men—but usually not
women or young children—received heavy blows designed to inflict pain
without serious injury. Then they were stripped and led to a raised plat-
form... where old women led the community in further abuse, tearing out
fingernails and poking sensitive body parts with sticks and firebrands.”
Then the prisoners were fed and allowed to rest while the grieving families
among whom they were apportioned decided whether to adopt them or
have them killed. Those who were to be killed were decorated, politely
treated until the appointed time, and then tortured and (among the
Mohawks and some other peoples) eaten.
Many prisoners did not suffer this fate. White captives, whose reports
are the only eyewitness accounts we have, frequently mention the kindness
with which they were treated, as one member of my family did. Her
account is borne out by those of other whites. Captives who were destined
to be adopted were quickly received into their new families, bathed, given
new clothes and started on a road of acculturation. As Philip Mazzei wrote
in 1788, “A father who has lost his son adopts a young prisoner in his
place. An orphan takes a father or mother; a widow a husband; one man
takes a sister and another a brother.” As difficult as it was for whites in the
nineteenth century to believe, life among the Indians had great attractions
for many whites. Benjamin Franklin, who was as ready as anyone to exploit
them, remarked that
when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the
Indians and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by the Friends, and
treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among22 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA