sufficiently shows the
unreasonable terror inspired in the mind of the natives of the river
in his day by the very name of Mohawk:

"One very hot season a great number of Indians gathered at the
village, and being a very droughty people they kept James Alexander
and myself night and day fetching water from a cold spring that ran
out of a rocky hill about three-quarters of a mile from the fort.[1]
In going thither we crossed a large interval corn field and then a
descent to a lower interval before we ascended the hill to the spring.
James being almost dead as well as I with this continual fatigue
contrived (a plan) to fright the Indians. He told me of it, but
conjured me to secrecy. The next dark night James going for water set
his kettle on the descent to the lowest interval, and ran back to the
fort puffing and blowing as in the utmost surprise, and told his
master that he saw something near the spring which looked like Mohawks
(which he said were only stumps--aside): his master being a most
courageous warrior went with James to make discovery, and when they
came to the brow of the hill, James pointed to the stumps, and withal
touched his kettle with his toe, which gave it motion down hill, and
at every turn of the kettle the bail clattered, upon which James and
his master could see a Mohawk in every stump in motion, and turned
tail to and he was the best man who could run the fastest. This
alarmed all the Indians in the village; they, though about thirty or
forty in number, packed off bag and baggage, some up the river and
others down, and did not return under fifteen days, and the heat of
the weather being finally over our hard service abated for this
season. I never heard that the Indians understood the occasion of the
fright, but James and I had many a private laugh about it."

[1] The old Medoctec fort was on the west bank of the River St. John
about eight miles below the town of Woodstock. The spring is
readily identified; an apparently inexhaustible supply of pure
cold water flows from it even in the driest season.

Until quite recently the word "Mohawk," suddenly uttered, was
sufficient to startle a New Brunswick Indian. The late Edward Jack
upon asking an Indian child, "What is a Mohawk?" received this reply,
"A Mohawk is a bad Indian who kills people and eats them." Parkman
describes the Mohawks as the fiercest, the boldest, yet most politic
savages to whom the American forests