Such are the influences of their training, that
although the female nature, in all races of men, is generally found to
be more susceptible of pity than the male, in this case they appear to
surpass the men in the fury of their merciless rage, and the industrious
ingenuity of their torments. Each is prepared with a bundle of long,
dry, reed cane, or other poles, to which are attached splinters of
burning pine. As the victim is led to the stake, the women and children
begin their sufferings by beating them with switches and clubs; and as
they reel and recoil from the blows, these fiendish imps show their
gratification by unremitting peals of laughter; too happy, if their
tortures ended here, or if the merciful tomahawk brought them to an
immediate close.
The signal for a more terrible infliction being given--the arms of the
victim are pinioned, and he is disengaged from the pole, and a grapevine
passed round his neck, allowing him a circle of about fifteen yards in
circumference, in which he can he made to march round his pole. They
knead tough clay on his head to secure the cranium from the effects of
the blaze, that it may not inflict immediate death. Under the excitement
of ineffable and horrid joy, they whip him round the circle, that he may
expose each part of his body to the flame, while the other part is
fanned by the cool air, that he may thus undergo the literal operation
of slow roasting. During this abhorrent process, the children fill the
circle in convulsions of laughter; and the women begin to thrust their
burning torches into his body, lacerating the quick of the flesh, that
the flame may inflict more exquisite anguish.
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