Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

38 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
marching forth in battle array. Usually a small party of from twenty
to forty would steal cautiously upon the enemy and attack them by night
or lie in ambush for parties returning from the hunt. They often re
sorted to tricks to conceal their presence or to disguise their numbers,
such as wearing the hoofs of buffaloes, or marching in single file, each
man stepping in the track made.by the warrior just ahead. When lying
in ambush, they would communicate with one another by imitating the
calls of wild birds or beasts. The slain in battle were always scalped
and often dismembered. A warrior's standing in his tribe depended on
the number of scalps he took. Captives were treated with the utmost
cruelty, and burning at the stake was the usual form of torture; In
this sport the women and children joined with great zest. The victim
stoically bore the torment, prevented by pride from showing any sign
of suffering."
Even as early as DeSoto's visit, the Georgia Indians had become to
some extent an agricultural people. They cultivated not only corn
but beans and pumpkins, preserved plums by drying them and extracted
oil from bear's fat. In addition to small gardens appurtenant to each
house, there were larger fields devoted exclusively to corn. Much of
the work was done by women; but as time went on there was less of
an indisposition on the part of men to perform work of this kind, for
merly considered degrading to a warrior. Until the whites came, steel
and iron implements were unknown to the Indians, but they developed
a rare degree of skill in making arrow-heads, spear-heads, stone pipes
and hammers, mortars for grinding corn, and various other utensils.
They were also adepts in making earthenware of different designs, in
the dressing of skins, and in the art of dying. Trinkets for personal
adornment were made from shells. Chairs, tables and baskets were made
of bark; while spinning and weaving were widely practiced. To a great
extent the industrial enterprise of the Indians was checked by the arrival
of the whites, who supplied them with many of these things, thus remov
ing the stimulus of necessity, the mother of invention.
It was difficult to find an Indian who was not fond of tobacco. The
plant was even regarded with superstitious reverence as a gift of the
Great Spirit. Hence the manufacture of pipes was given a constant
impetus. Thousands of the most beautiful specimens have been dug
out of mounds and preserved in museums. These have been divided by
antiquarians into three classes, calumets, individual pipes and idol pipes.
The calumet was the celebrated pipe of peace. It was the common prop
erty of a village or tribe, was large and heavy, and its bowl was some
times the size of a tea-cup. It was smoked only on formal occasions,
to conclude alliances or to attest treaties. The function was usually
one of great impressiveness, since a whiff of the calumet was equivalent
to an oath, pledging the smoker's honor. Individual pipes were of
various sizes, most of them, however, small, made of stone or clay, with
a reed inserted for a stem. The bowls to some of these were no larger
than a thimble; others would hold an ounce of tobacco. Idol pipes were
so called because they were made in the shape of some animal or to rep
resent the human figure. It is not likely, however, that any of the
Georgia Indians with whom our history deals ever smoked these pipes.