deviation from this practice is exacted,
and generally observed. After an Indian has acquired the reputation of a
warrior, expert hunter, or swift runner, he has little need of minor
qualifications, or of much address or formality in forming his
matrimonial views. The young squaws sometimes discover their attachment
to those they love by some act of tender regard, but more frequently
through the kind offices of some confidante or friend. Such overtures
generally succeed: but should they fail, it is by no means considered
disgraceful, or in the least disadvantageous to the female; on the
contrary, should the object of her affections have distinguished himself
especially in battle, she is the more esteemed on account of the
judgment she displayed in her partiality for a respectable and brave
warrior."--Hunter, p. 235-237.]

[Footnote 273: See Appendix, No. LVII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 274: "They firmly believe that the spirits of those who are
killed by the enemy without equal revenge of blood, find no rest, and at
night haunt the houses of the tribe to which they belonged; but when
that kindred duty of retaliation is justly executed, they immediately
get ease and power to fly away."--Adair's _Account of the American
Indians._]

[Footnote 275: "The modern scalping-knife is of civilized manufacture
made expressly for Indian use, and carried into the Indian country by
thousands and tens of thousands, and sold at an enormous price. In the
native simplicity of the Indian, he shapes out his rude hatchet from a
piece of stone, heads his arrows and spears with flints, and his knife
is a sharpened bone or the edge of a broken silex. His untutored mind
has not been ingenious enough to design or execute any thing so savage
or destructive as these civilized refinements on Indian barbarity. The
scalping-knife, in a beautiful scabbard which is carried under the belt,
is generally used in all Indian countries where knives have been
introduced. It is the size and shape of a butcher's knife with one edge,
manufactured at Sheffield perhaps for sixpence, and sold to the poor
Indians in these wild regions for a horse. If I should ever cross the
Atlantic, with my collection, a curious enigma would be solved for the
English people who may inquire for a scalping-knife, when they find that
every one in my collection (and hear, also, that nearly every one that
is to be seen in the Indian country, to the Rocky Mountains and the
Pacific Ocean