was told off for “intelligence” work, namely, they ran on ahead and roundabout to locate the enemy, looking out especially along the rivers for marks or signals showing whether friends or enemies had passed that way.  These marks were devised by the chiefs of the different tribes, and were duly communicated to the war leaders of tribes in friendship or alliance, like our cipher codes; and equally they were changed from time to time to baffle the enemy.  Neither hunters nor main body ever got in front of the advance guard, lest they should give an alarm.  Thus they travelled until they got within two days or so of the enemies’ headquarters; thenceforward they only marched by night, and hid in the woods by day, making no fires or noise, and subsisting only on cooked maize meal.

At intervals the soothsayers accompanying the army were consulted for signs and omens; and when the war-chiefs decided on their plan of campaign they summoned all the fighting men to a smooth place in a wood, cut sticks a foot long (as many as there were warriors), and each leader of a division “put the sticks in such order as seemed to him best, indicating to his followers the rank and order they were to observe in battle.  The warriors watched carefully this proceeding, observing attentively the outline which their chief had made with the sticks.  Then they would go away and set to placing themselves in such order as the sticks were in.  This manoeuvre they repeated several times, and at all their encampments, without needing a sergeant to maintain them in the proper order they were able to keep accurately the positions assigned to them” (Champlain).

The Hurons who were accompanying Champlain frequently questioned him as to his dreams, they themselves having a great belief in the value of dreams as omens and indications of future events.  One day, when they were approaching the country of the Iroquois, Champlain actually did have a dream.  In this he imagined that he saw the Iroquois enemies drowning in a lake near a mountain.  Moved to pity in his dream he wished to help them, but his savage allies insisted that they must be allowed to die.  When he awoke he told the Amerindians of his dream, and they were greatly impressed, as they regarded it as a good omen.

Near the modern town of Ticonderoga the Hurons and Algonkins of Georgian Bay and Ottawa met a party of Iroquois, probably of the Mohawk tribe.  The Iroquois had built rapidly a stockade in which to retreat if things should go badly with them, but the battle at first began in the old heroic style with as much ceremony as a French duel.  First the allies from the St. Lawrence asked the Iroquois what time it would suit them to begin fighting the next day; then the latter replied:  “When the sun is well up, if you don’t mind?  We can see better then to kill you all.”  Accordingly in the bright morning the Hurons and Algonkins advanced against the circular stockade of the Iroquois, and the Iroquois marched out to fight in great pomp, their leaders wearing plumed headdresses.  With this exception both parties fought quite naked, and armed only with bows and arrows.