"Tomahawk" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... attired in savage finery of paint and feathers; no sculptor's ideal form, or novelist's heroic countenance; but a mild-looking person, in an old shooting jacket and red flannel shirt, with a straw hat shading his pale coppery complexion. He wield a tomahawk or march on a war trail! Never. And where was the grim taciturnity of his forefathers? He answered when spoken to, not in Mohawk, or Cherokee, or Delaware, but in nasal Yankeefied English; nay, he seemed ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... had much to suffer from the increasing ferocity of the Indians. But de Maisonneuve was always equal to the occasion, and derived advantage from their fury, that is, spiritual advantage. Many and many a time, he had the consolation to see those barbarous warriors throw down the bloody tomahawk and embrace Christianity. He was truly an apostle in their midst, attracting them as much by affability, as by the benefits he conferred, and it was his greatest pleasure to act as sponsor for them in baptism. Almighty God blessed the ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... stopped that fellow's galop." As soon as the robber could disentangle himself from the fallen horse, he took to his heels and ran down a sloping ground as fast as he could. The hunter drew his tomahawk from his belt, and gave chase after him. As he was more of an equestrian than a pedestrian, the nimbleness of the hunter soon shortened the distance between them, and the last of the robbers fell. Thus perished this dangerous gang of six, by the single hand of this brave hunter, and, as ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... a stone tomahawk of the aborigines. Gweh-un, in Mukthang language, Gippsland. Apparently a remnant of a term occurring along the east side of Australia; Burgoin, New South Wales; bulgoon and balgon, Burdekin River, Queensland; related to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... cloud of spears sailed out of the mangrove swamp at me. At least a dozen were sticking into me. I started to run, but tripped over one that was fast in my calf, and went down. The woolly-heads made a run for me, each with a long-handled, fantail tomahawk with which to hack off my head. They were so eager for the prize that they got in one another's way. In the confusion, I avoided several hacks by throwing myself right ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... the most colossal conflict of modern times. Before presenting a few of my own personal recollections of the struggle, let me say that when the struggle was over, no one was more eager than myself to bury the tomahawk, and to offer the calumet of peace to our Southern fellow countrymen and fellow Christians. Whenever I have visited them their cordial greeting has warmed the cockles of my heart. I thank God that the great gash has been ...
— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
... The Tomahawk's a fearsome bird, we deem; Though feathered tribes hold him in great esteem; A bird of prey, he whizzes through the air, And clutches his pale victim by the hair. Gory and grewsome,—he is the mainstay Of the historic ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... apple for good or evil off 'm his little boy's head. That's all the little boy William Tell and Adam and Eve got, but he ain't going to fall down and worship no gravy image on top a pole, so he put a tomahawk in his bosom and he tooken his bow and arrur and shot the apple plumb th'oo the middle and never swinge a hair of his head. And Eve nibble off the apple and give Adam the core, and Lina all time 'sputing 'bout Adam and Eve and William Tell ain't in the ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... spread east and west over the country. "A treaty of peace and friendship was then made with the Nahdoways residing on the south side of Lake Ontario, and both nations solemnly covenanted, by going through the usual forms of burying the tomahawk, smoking the pipe of peace, and locking their hands and arms together, agreeing in future to call each other Brothers. Thus ended ...
— The Country of the Neutrals - (As Far As Comprised in the County of Elgin), From Champlain to Talbot • James H. Coyne
... July, when the red-hot sun was going down in a blaze, and I was leaning against a corner in my huntsman's frock, lo! there came stalking out of the crimson West a gigantic red-man, erect as a pine, with his glittering tomahawk, big as a broad-ax, folded in martial repose across his chest, Moodily wrapped in his blanket, and striding like a king on the stage, he promenaded up and down the rustic streets, exhibiting on the back of his blanket a crowd of human hands, rudely ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... at length prevailed; and a treaty was concluded, in which the Indians pledged themselves to take up arms against the rebels, and continue in service during the war. They were then presented each with a suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, a quantity of powder and lead, and a piece of gold. [Footnote: Life of ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... triennial catalogue; and as there is many a slip between the cup and lip, one is tempted to guess that he may have lost his degree by some display of his native instinct,—possibly a flourish of the tomahawk or scalping-knife. However this may have been, the good man he celebrated was a notable instance of the Angelical Conjunction, as the author of the "Magnalia" calls it, of the offices ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his life was in the greatest peril. An English soldier who had been thrown down in the rush was just about to rise, when a gigantic Indian, yelling out the dreaded war-whoop, darted towards him. Isidore sprang between them. With a sweep of his tomahawk the maddened savage sent de Beaujardin's small sword flying into the air. The weapon of the Indian was already uplifted for the deadly stroke when a strange fantastically-dressed figure passed, noiselessly but swiftly, between the two combatants, and then the red skin fell back, the fierce ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... "WHIZ"—and his sharp tomahawk struck the stair rail within a few inches of the baby's head. But the frightened girl hurried on, and in a few seconds was safe ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... pride was highest, and his fame most fair. Their hearts grew weak as women at his name: They dared no war-path since my Mohawk came With ashen bow, and flinten arrow-head To pierce their craven bodies; but their dead Must be avenged. Avenged? They dared not walk In day and meet his deadly tomahawk; They dared not face his fearless scalping knife; So—Niyoh![1]—then they thought of me, ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... were expeditious in their work. The father and mother were pierced by arrows, mangled with the tomahawk, and scalped. One son, severely wounded, escaped into the forest. Another little boy, who was deaf and dumb, was taken captive and carried by the Indians to their distant tribe, where he remained, ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... the peace calumet, and were by no means cordial in their reception of the strangers. There was evidently a diversity of opinion among them, as to the disposition they should make of their captives. Three blows of the tomahawk would silence them all in death. Their bodies could be thrown into the stream, and their canoe, with all its freight, of such priceless value to the savages, would be in their possession. Probably some of them had visited the French ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... Commonwealth were best advised to be made. He was a sturdy fighting man, doing solid execution upon both the inward and outward enemies of the State. The latter were the savages, the former the Quakers; the energy expended by the early Puritans in resistance to the tomahawk not weakening their disposition to deal with spiritual dangers. They employed the same—or almost the same—weapons in both directions; the flintlock and the halberd against the Indians, and the cat-o'-nine-tails against the heretics. One of the longest, though by no means one ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... other by name, and both sprung forward. The blow of Newton's sword was warded off by the miscreant; but at the same moment that of Monsieur de Fontanges was passed through his body to the hilt. Newton had just time to witness the fall of Jackson, when a tomahawk descended on his head; his senses failed him, and he laid among the dead ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... broke in Joyce, "Robby Moore gave an outlandish war-whoop right in my ear, that nearly deafened me, and grabbed me by my hair, yelling he was going to tomahawk me. And I saw Eugenia go sailing up the road as fast as her horse could carry her, with Keith after her, swinging on to those two long black braids of hers. You see Lloyd had the advantage of us with her short hair. They couldn't scalp her so easily; but Malcolm chased ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... walking-staff into a mound of black mould at his feet. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and lo! a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death blow had been given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... teepee might be brightly lit and show him the way. He then took the scalp of the enemy and proceeded on his track, until he came to the upturned root of a great tree. There he spread out his arrows and laid out his tomahawk. ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... not herself send an offensive army, all the savages were paid and protected by the English party: the Hurons and Iroquois committed their devastations on that whole frontier. Some baubles or a barrel of rum were sufficient to make them seize the tomahawk; they then rushed upon villages, burnt houses, destroyed harvests, massacred all, without regard to age or sex, and received on their return the price of each bloody scalp they could exhibit. A young American girl, whom her lover, an English, was expecting, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... the din Tuskahoma lifted now his ferocious battle cry; advancing upon the blazed sapling he sank his tomahawk deep into the soft white wood, then moved swiftly out of the circle to his own fire. This was the act by which he announced his ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... number of natives were seen to-day—one mob was disturbed at a waterhole, where they were cooking fish, which they left in their alarm, together with their arms. The spears were the first that had been observed made of reed, and a stone tomahawk was seen, as large as the largest-sized American axe. These blacks were puny wretched-looking creatures, and very thin. They had a great number of wild dogs with them—over thirty being counted by the party. 10 miles, N.W. by ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... get in the autumn salted fish, from the other store of swine and cattle. Famine and pestilence are far from them. They build a "fort" and perhaps a stockade, but there are none of the stealthy deaths given by arrow and tomahawk in the north, nor are there any of the Spanish alarms that terrified the south. From the first they have with them women and children. They know that their settlement is "home." Soon other ships and colonists follow the Ark ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... falling into the deep water. We followed up the Gregory River thirteen miles by the courses I have mentioned. We found the branding-irons did not answer for branding trees, as it took a much longer time to do so than to mark them with a tomahawk, so we buried them at a tree marked Dig, at the camp we left this morning. Last night we had a potful of the young wood of the cabbage palm, which tasted like asparagus. All the country we have seen today is of a similar character to that ...
— Journal of Landsborough's Expedition from Carpentaria - In search of Burke and Wills • William Landsborough
... communication, was made to feel the superciliousness of European superiority. It is only a week since I had a discussion with him on the subject of the humanity and the relish for liberty in his beloved model; and when I cited the instance of the employment of the tomahawk, in the wars between England and this country, he actually affirmed that the Indian savages killed no women and children, but the wives and offspring of their enemies; and when I told him that the English, like most other people, cared very little for any liberty but ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... past, which his visit with the French and the Illinois had vividly recalled. He had forgotten the present and was again the mighty warrior who had made the hearts of the palefaces quake with fear. Little he dreamed that behind him stood an assassin with up-raised tomahawk. ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... them to build a hut for themselves; and he indicated the precise spot, at a considerable distance from the camp, where he wished it to be. As soon as they clearly understood what his desires were, they went off into the bush and, armed with a small tomahawk lent them by Leslie, proceeded to cut down some forty or fifty young and pliant saplings, the butt-ends of which they sharpened to a point, and then thrust vertically, into the ground in a circle some twelve feet in diameter. They then brought the tops of the ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... less Mr. Edwin Reed's thirteen 'before 1592.'" {113c} But, at the close of his work {113d} Mr. Greenwood reviews and disbands that unlucky troop of thirteen Shakespearean plays "before 1592" as mustered by Mr. Reed, a Baconian of whom Mr. Collins wrote in terms worthy of feu Mr. Bludyer of The Tomahawk. ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... on they saw Tomati's spear darted through the great fence at some savage who had climbed up, and was hacking the lashings; and so sure as that thrust was made, the stone tomahawk ceased to hack, and its user fell back with a yell of ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... is. And though you're perfectly safe if you do just as he tells you, if you rebel, he might—he might TOMAHAWK you!" ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... side, and are paddled with small pieces of bark held in either hand. We made signs to them to come to us, with which three of them complied. We made them understand that if they would take our rope across, and make it fast to a dead tree on the other side of the river, we would give them a tomahawk. They consented to undertake the task, and after great exertion succeeded in performing it, and received their reward, with which they seemed quite satisfied and highly pleased. We succeeded in ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... charge until he became hated with a deadly hatred. He was an active explorer, and did much to open up the interior country, till at length, on a trip in which he was accompanied only by some convicts, they glutted their vengeance by spearing him and battering his head with a native tomahawk. ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... encamped at, some five or seven miles off. On their arrival on the water they were met by a number of natives who kindly got them water and fish to supply their wants, and after spelling a time got some of them as guides to the camp on Pando, where they were rewarded by presents of a tomahawk and blanket, etc. Started Bell out to the cart with the bullocks and blackfellows, Sambo and Jack, leading a packhorse with supplies ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... of 1783, and the consequent cessation of Indian hostilities and barbarities, returned to their friends those prisoners, who had escaped the tomahawk, the gauntlet, and the savage fire, after their having spent many years in captivity, and ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... Tate, the antient tomahawk" on the plate illustrating the objects ("Travels," op. cit., pl. 4, ...
— The Siouan Indians • W. J. McGee
... times one of the two will gain the two games that they need to win. In this game you would say to see them run that they looked like two parties who wanted to fight. This exercise contributes much to render the savages alert and prepared to avoid blows from the tomahawk of an enemy, when they find themselves in a combat. Without being told in advance that it was a game, one might truly believe that they fought in open country. Whatever accident the game may cause, they attribute it to the chance of the game and ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... whose lives I have attempted to portray. The picture is full of meaning, dignity, and simplicity. In this time "Canetuckee" was still a part of Virginia. The grounds on which, as boys, they played were held by their fathers under what is known as a "tomahawk claim." "Beyond lay endless leagues of shadowy forest." "The Illinois" had not been admitted into the sisterhood of the States. The vast domain west of the Mississippi River was unexplored. The city of St. Louis was ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... warfare as brothers along the sparkling streamlets that rise in the mountain ridges, their sparkling waters leaping and jumping through the gorges and glens and flowing away to the "great river." All was peace and happiness; the tomahawk of war had long since been buried, and the pipe of peace smoked around their camp fires after every successful hunting expedition. But dissentions arose—distrust and embittered feelings took the place of brotherly love. The men of the mountains ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... fillet, on his head, and a profusion of copper and brass medals and trinkets round his neck. His face was not painted, with the exception of two black circles round his eyes. His head was shaved, and one long scalp-lock hung behind. He had a tomahawk and a knife in his belt, and a rifle upon his arm. Martin advanced to the Indian and looked ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... seems to have escaped your attention. You see, the Forefathers landed in the morning of December the 21st, but about noon that day a pack of hungry wolves swept down the bleak American beach looking for a New England dinner, and a band of savages out for a tomahawk picnic hove in sight, and the Pilgrim Fathers thought it best for safety and warmth to go on board the Mayflower and pass the night. And during the night there came up a strong wind blowing off shore that swept the Mayflower from its moorings clear out to sea, and there was a prospect ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... of our brave Tecumseh, as it is claimed that he was killed by a soldier named Johnson, upon whom they conferred the honor of having disposed of the dreaded Tecumseh. Even pictured out as being coming up with his tomahawk to strike a man who was on horseback, but being instantly shot dead with the pistol. Now I have repeatedly heard our oldest Indians, both male and female, who were present at the defeat of the British and Indians, all tell a unanimous story, saying ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... taught and enforced, by his example, this principle, namely, that it as wrong to kill non-combatants, or to kill under any circumstances in time of peace. He favored peace rather than war. He was twenty-five years of age, and had six notches on the handle of his tomahawk, indicating that he had slain half a dozen of his Ojibway foes before he ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... could clear him of other sins as easily as this. The object he was turning and twisting in his left breeches pocket was not a house-key, nor a jimmy, nor a club, nor a tomahawk, nor any infernal machine: It was a small piece of paper containing fourteen stivers, which he had raised on his New Testament with Psalms at the grocer's on the "Ouwebrug"; and the thing that held him fast on the Hartenstraat was nothing more or less than his entrance into the ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... would cut my life-line before the sound of my ready revolver could break the stillness of the camp. Three pairs of snaky black eyes looked steadily at me, and I stared back as directly into them. Two arrow-points gently touched my ears. Behind me, a tomahawk softly marked a ring around my scalp outside of my hat. I was standing in a circle of death. At last the brave directly before me slowly drew up his bow and pointed it at me; then dropping it, he snapped the arrow shaft and threw away the pieces. Pointing to my cocked ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... bravery; so, when the other Indians seized Robert by the hair to tomahawk him, for killing their comrade, he said, "No;—the pappoose is brave enough to make a chief. He shall go home with Bald Eagle ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... pair of real moccasins that Uncle Ernest sent you for bedroom slippers. I'll cut some strips of cloth into fringe for leggings, and you can wear Athelstane's leather belt, and carry an axe for a tomahawk," said Quenrede, surveying her work with critical satisfaction. "Don't forget to paint ...
— A Popular Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Six years later they purchased a place on the banks of the Hudson, calling it Wildercliff—Wilder Klipp, a Dutch word meaning wild man's cliff, from the fact that early settlers found on a smooth rock on the river shore a rough tracing of two Indians with tomahawk and calumet. Garrettson was educated in the Church of England, but left it to become a Methodist; a man of strong personality, he soon rose to a prominent place in the church. Being a native of Maryland, he was naturally ...
— The New York and Albany Post Road • Charles Gilbert Hine
... is some one coming up the back path," and rising as she spoke, she hurried out to the side porch, closely followed by Moppet, who said to herself, with all a child's vivid and dramatic imagination, "Perhaps it's an Indian coming to tomahawk us in our beds!" which thought caused her to seize a fold of Miss Bidwell's ...
— An Unwilling Maid • Jeanie Gould Lincoln
... have read of the early history of Virginia only in our school histories, Pocahontas is merely a figure in one dramatic scene—her rescue of John Smith. We see her in one mental picture only, kneeling beside the prostrate Englishman, her uplifted hands warding off the descending tomahawk. ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... Tomahawk, n. [tmajok] Hacha de armas de los Indios Americanos. Palataw, palakol na panglaban ng mga ...
— Dictionary English-Spanish-Tagalog • Sofronio G. Calderon
... slowly by myself. One night, when near what is called the Horse-shoe bend of the Finke, I had turned out my horses, and as it seemed inclined to rain, was erecting a small tent, and on looking round for the tomahawk to drive a stake into the ground, was surprised to notice a very handsome little black boy, about nine or ten years old, quite close to me. I patted him on the head, whereupon he smiled very sweetly, and began to talk most fluently ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... Placed upon the path of a bare-footed enemy, this rude contrivance, combined with the scratching of the thorns, and the gashing cuts of the grass, must somewhat discourage pursuit. The shields of elephant hide are large, square, and ponderous. The "terrible war-axe" is the usual poor little tomahawk, more like a toy than ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... took his hand off his tomahawk at this pacific rejoinder, made a bow not ungraciously, said he could not, of course, ask more than an apology from a gentleman of my age (Merci, Monsieur!) and, hearing the name of Mr. Selwyn, made ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... breath out of the body of its antagonist, and giving him an opportunity to rise. When Arundel stood upon his feet, he beheld the panther in the agonies of death—an arrow sticking in one eye and an Indian striking it with a tomahawk upon the head, for which great agility and quickness were necessary in order to avoid the paw and teeth of the creature in its dying struggles. These soon became less violent, until, with a shudder, the limbs relaxed, and it lay motionless ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... the exulting Redskins as with yells of gratified triumph, warriors and squaws, young men and children, gloated fiercely over the brutal torture and lingering death of eight English prisoners. It was a grim and grisly spectacle, for no form of torment—from the nerve-wracking test of knife and tomahawk, arrow or bullet, aimed with intent to graze the flesh and not immediately to kill, to the ghastly ordeal of red-hot ramrods and blazing pine-root splinters thrust into the flesh or under the nails —was omitted by those bloodthirsty red devils. Many a sleepless hour, many a night broken ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... fire? They first took a piece of dry wood, which they scraped flat with stones. Then, with a blow of his tomahawk of deer's horn, Keketaw made a round hole in the wood. One end of a dry stick was placed in this hole. The other end was supported in the hollow of a shell which Keketaw held in ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... seemed to be blazing among so much tangled brush. The ordinary hunting shirt, fringed in front, inclosed his chest, and was gathered at the waist by a sash or belt into which were thrust his hunting knife and tomahawk. The usual breechcloth, leggins and ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... see what a fine big buffaler I am!' An' I've a lot uv respeck fur the Injun, too. He's an Injun an' he don't say he ain't. He don't come sneakin' along claimin' that he's an old friend uv the family, he jest up an' lets drive his tomahawk at your head, ef he gits the chance, an' makes no bones 'bout it. I'd a heap ruther be killed by a good honest Injun who wuz pantin' fur my blood an' didn't pretend that he wuzn't pantin', than be done to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... musketry, and seen the blaze of the chapel, and now were on the track of the rangers, summoned to vengeance by the bell's dismal murmurs. In the midst of a deep swamp, they made a sudden onset on the retreating foe. Good Deacon Lawson battled stoutly, but had his skull cloven by a tomahawk, and sank into the depths of the morass, with the ponderous bell above him. And, for many a year thereafter, our hero's voice was heard no more on earth, neither at the hour of worship, nor at festivals ...
— A Bell's Biography - (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pass a happy evening with him as it was for Thomas Campbell, figuring to himself a realisation of Cowley's dreams and of Rousseau's poetic seclusion; "till at last," in Southey's words, "comes an ill-looking Indian with a tomahawk, and scalps me—a most melancholy proof that society is very bad." It is the freshness, the youthfulness, of these Letters, after their century and more of dust-gathering, that is least likely to escape us. And this "Farmer in Pennsylvania" is almost as unmistakably of kin with good Gilbert ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... no very courtier-like manner; and especially the Lion of the north had let him feel the lashing of his angry tail. Not of a temperament to bear calmly even a "look that threatened him with insult," his Lordship seized the tomahawk of satire, mounted the fiery wings of his muse, and, like Bonaparte, spared neither rank, nor sex, nor age, but converted the republic of letters into one universal field of carnage. The volume called English Bards and Scotch Reviewers is, in short, to be considered, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... eleven men killed and six wounded. M'Donald was taken to Fort Dayton the next day, where his leg was amputated; but the blood flowed so freely that he died in a few hours. On his person was found a silver-mounted tomahawk, which had thirty-two scalp notches on the handle, to show how he had imitated ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... children, you must remain here at the foot of this mountain, while I climb up to the top. There is no use in trying to shoot this great monster, for he will but blow my arrows away, so I must climb up and strike him with my tomahawk." ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister
... Which There Are Too Many Knocks At the Gate, a Stratagem Is Successful, Red Feather Draws a Tomahawk, and an Indian Girl Appears On ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... always out in the country in the afternoon)—would come over and bring his latest Indian relics to show to the Dean, the latter always read to him a passage or two. As soon as the doctor laid his tomahawk on the table, the Dean would reach for his Theocritus. I remember that on the day when Dr. Gallagher brought over the Indian skull that they had dug out of the railway embankment, and placed it on the rustic table, the Dean read to him so long from Theocritus that the doctor, I truly believe, ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... the Onondaga Nation has exercised it long before your country's legislators built upon that basis your independent home. And still it proved in itself alone no security to all those nations who have known it before you. Your own fathers have seen the last of the Mohawks burying his bloody tomahawk in the namesake flood, and have listened to the majestic words of Logan, spoken with the dignity of an Aemilius, that there exists no living being on earth in the veins of whom one drop of the blood ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... man who kept a small tavern in the lower part of the town; a dirty frame tenement almost entirely hidden by an immense sign hanging outside, having the figure, heroic size of an Iroquois in full evening dress, feathers, bare legs and tomahawk. ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... village of Sillery, while a missionary was celebrating mass in the Catholic Church, and none but old men, women, and children were present, a terrible and foul massacre occurred. The Iroquois rushed into the chapel with tomahawk and scalping knife, murdering all the congregation, nor stayed their hands until upwards of four hundred families, being every soul in the village, were slain. About this time our friends south of the line 45 deg., first began to dream of the ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... them continued toward Juag while the other turned upon us. As he came nearer I saw that he carried in his hand one of my six-shooters, but he was holding it by the barrel, evidently mistaking it for some sort of warclub or tomahawk. ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... patient; and, when he had finished his professional remarks, informed her that the Bannisters were to go with him to Barport. When Miss Panney heard this she sprang from her chair with the air of an Indian of the Wild West bounding with uplifted tomahawk upon a defenceless foe. The doctor involuntarily pushed back his chair, but before he could make up his mind whether he ought to be frightened or amused, Miss Panney sat down as promptly as she had risen, and a grim ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... circle and dancing and yelling like the wild barbarians they were, while old men and young braves and squaws and children looked on in savage rapture. Before either boy could speak Big Buffalo espied them and leaped forward brandishing a tomahawk. ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden
... had seized my rifle, but I instantly wrenched it from him, though I acknowledge I was too terrified to shoot. When we had in some measure recovered from our sudden fright, I hastened to Le Brache, and discovered that a tomahawk had been sunk in his head, and there remained. I pulled it out, and in examining the ghastly wound, buried all four fingers of my right hand in his brain. We bound up his head, but he was a corpse in a ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... suffered more. "An Indian killed at Al [?] Faribault's Trading house—whiskey was given the Indian for his furs—by Mr. F.—The deceased then invited one of his friends to drink with him—the invitation was accepted—when this friend becoming inflamed with the Liquor very inhospitably sunk his Tomahawk into the head of his host—whiskey it is said does no harm in the Trade by persons interested—but the foregoing is only one of the many hundred fatal occurrences from its use in ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... genus: he very much astonished some persons when he sold his birthright for a pot of sack; but not even his Sosia has a grain of respect for him, though, doubtless, he thinks his name very terrible to the enemy, when he flourishes his criticopoeticopolitical tomahawk, and sets up his Indian yell for the blood of his old friends: but, at best, he is a mere political scarecrow, a man of straw, ridiculous to all who know of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who have stuffed him, and set him up, as the ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... sharp-pointed, and edged (small sword and sabre). The broad lance subsisted till lately in the halberd; the spear and framea in the long pike and spontoon; the missile weapons in the war hatchet, or North American tomahawk. There are, besides, found in the old German barrows, perforated stone balls, which they threw by means of thongs ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... direction we were travelling. We fortunately escaped molestation, but saw in several places human bones, probably the relics of a former combat between the United States troops, or travellers like ourselves, and Indians or negroes. One skull I picked up had been split with a tomahawk, besides having a bullet-hole in it about the region of the left ear. Our situation was one of great peril, but I had made up my mind to proceed at all hazards, despite the opposition shown by two or three of the settlers composing my escort, who, on more than one occasion, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... was over, one of the monsters came to me, a tomahawk in his hand, threatening me with a cruel death if I would not consent to go with them. I was forced to agree, promising to do all that was in my power for them, and trusting to Providence to deliver me out of their hands. On this they untied me, ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... greater offender. Grundy, who had seen three brothers killed by Indians and his mother reduced from opulence to poverty in a single night, spoke passionately of that power which was taking every "opportunity of intriguing with our Indian neighbors and setting on the ruthless savages to tomahawk our women and children." "War," he exclaimed, "is not to commence by sea or land, it is already begun, and some of the richest blood of our ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... quiet before his approach. His breath was the tempest, the roll of the thunder his drum-beat, the lightning's flash his tomahawk. At his approach, the face of the deep was thrown into a mighty commotion. Column after column of white warriors advanced boldly upon the land, and broke upon the rocky shores with a loud war-whoop. Such was the combat of the Spirits ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... second into the sea, where he was drowned. Gallop then boarded the pinnace. Two Indians were left, who retreated into a small compartment of the hold, and were left unmolested. In the cabin was found the mangled body of Mr. Oldham. A tomahawk had been sunk deep into his skull, and his body was covered with wounds. The floor of the cabin was littered with portions of the cargo, which the murderous savages had plundered. Taking all that remained of value upon his own craft, Gallop cut loose ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Hurons. Daily they expected to meet a violent death, and a letter, still extant, drawn up by five priests in the form of a last testament, shows the unfaltering fortitude of men whose dearest ambition was a martyr's death. The intervention of a squaw saved Du Peron from the tomahawk uplifted to brain him; an unseen hand delivered Ragueneau; Le Mercier and Brebeuf confounded their assailants with the courage of their demeanour; and only Chaumont suffered, being assaulted and severely wounded. Knowing, however, that their death had been finally decided upon, the Jesuits ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... work to be done, the clearing away of the wreck being our first task. Simpson and I accordingly armed ourselves with a tomahawk each, and went forward to make a commencement. Simpson began at the jibboom-end, cutting away the stays attached thereto, and working his way in, while I made an attack upon the shrouds and backstays. Our intention was to cut away everything in the ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... built to command the entrance to the harbour, intrudes upon it, the forest of spruce and fir with its labyrinth of roads and paths and frequent glades of soft waving grass, extends from shore to shore, making a wilderness that a boy's imagination may easily people with Indians brandishing tomahawk and scalping knife, or bears and wolves ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... join a party of fishers or hunters, his presence would bring misfortune on them; the ghost of his dead wife would frighten away the fish or the game. He goes about everywhere and at all times armed with a tomahawk to defend himself, not only against wild boars in the jungle, but against the dreaded spirit of his departed spouse, who would do him an ill turn if she could; for all the souls of the dead are malignant and their only delight is to harm ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... nose, brows, war-paint, etc., according to taste, pin a square of bright flannel about the shoulders, and you have an alarmingly startling likeness of a Pi-ute chief. A boy handy with his penknife can add a wooden tomahawk. ...
— Harper's Young People, April 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... war-paint and feathers, and nipping little pieces out of my arms and legs. I stood it as long as I could, and then I began to hit out at 'em. All at once one of the creatures commenced flourishing his tomahawk at me, getting nearer and nearer all the time. "I have tried, but I can't get in," he said, grinning horribly, and the voice sounded just like Phil's; "he's locked his door, and he won't even answer me,—he's ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... V. arm; raise troops, mobilize troops; raise up in arms; take up the cudgels &c. 720; take up arms, fly to arms, appeal to arms, fly to the sword; draw the sword, unsheathe the sword; dig up the hatchet, dig up the tomahawk; go to war, wage war, 'let slip the dogs of war' [Julius Caesar]; cry havoc; kindle the torch of war, light the torch of war; raise one's banner, raise the fire cross; hoist the black flag; throw away, fling away the scabbard; enroll, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Jupiter. But the Head of Affairs, much belaboured as he was, knew that he might pay too high even for Mr. Supplehouse and the Jupiter; and the saviour of the nation was told that he might swing his tomahawk. Since that time he had been swinging his tomahawk, but not with so much effect as had been anticipated. He also was very intimate with Mr. Sowerby, and was decidedly one of the Chaldicotes set. And there were many others included in the stigma ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... headquarters could handle it; it was never turned in twice alike, and they were always writing Tom Porter about the thing. Tom explained several times that it was Sitting Bull's ambassador who was drawing that money, and that he usually signed the pay-roll with a tomahawk. But nobody at Omaha ever knew how to take a joke. The first time Tom went down, he was called in very solemnly to explain again about the name, and being in a hurry and very tired of the whole business, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... knives, and guns. There were cries for mercy, mothers' pleas for children's lives, and maidens' appeals to manly honor; but all in vain. It was not necessary to use firearms; indeed, they would have endangered the assailants themselves. The tomahawk and the knife sufficed, and in the space of a few moments every woman and older child was ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... when he was out alone playing Indians and had sunk his scout's axe into a fallen log and then scalped the log, he felt that once before in those same woods he had trailed that same Indian, and with his own tomahawk split open his skull. Sometimes when he knelt to drink at a secret spring in the forest, the autumn leaves would crackle and he would raise his eyes fearing to see ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... guards rushed for their guns, but they were gone. The family fled up stairs, but Margaret, remembering the baby in the cradle below, ran back, seized the baby, and when she was half way up the flight, an Indian flung his tomahawk at her head, which, missing her, buried itself in the wood, and left its historic mark to the ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... same day the same artifice was resorted to at Michilimackinac, and with the most complete success. There was no guardian angel there to warn them of danger, and all fell beneath the rifle, the tomahawk, the war-club, and the knife, one or two of the traders—a Mr. Henry ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... murderers who had played their part, twelve years before, in the massacre on the Mahony River. As soon as Zeisberger rose to speak, every eye was fixed upon him; and while he delivered his Gospel message, he knew that at any moment a tomahawk might cleave his skull, and his scalp hang bleeding at the murderer's girdle. "Never yet," he wrote, "did I see so clearly painted on the faces of the Indians both the darkness of hell and the world-subduing ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... while they were at their morning meal. Unfortunately, another party of savages was in his rear, and when he fired upon those in front, he was in turn fired upon from behind. He was now between two fires, and greatly outnumbered. Two of his men fell, his tomahawk was shot from his side, and the enemy shouted for the expected triumph. There was no chance of successful defence in the position of the rangers, and they were ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... to their custom, having been wrapped in a blanket, and placed in a rude coffin, along with his guns, tomahawk, pipes, and a quantity of tobacco, had been carried to the most elevated point of the hill opposite the fort, followed by an immense procession of his people, whooping, beating their drums, howling, and making altogether what is emphatically ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... SURPRISE. I repeat it, BEWARE OF A SURPRISE—you know how the Indians fight us. He went off with that as my last solemn warning thrown into his ears. And yet!! to suffer that army to be cut to pieces, hack'd, butchered, tomahawk'd, by a surprise—the very thing I guarded him against!! O God, O God, he's worse than a murderer! how can he answer it to his country;—the blood of the slain is upon him—the curse of widows and orphans—the curse ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... copper and brass medals and trinkets round his neck. His face was not painted, with the exception of two black circles round his eyes. His head was shaved, and one long scalp-lock hung behind him. He had a tomahawk and a knife in his belt and a rifle upon his arm. Martin advanced to the Indian and ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... near it. It was a clear, moonlight night, and the British squadron was not more than a quarter of a mile distant—so, you see, there was a little risk. We didn't halt long. Pitts led the way on board the Dartmouth, and we followed, musket and tomahawk in hand. Nobody offered any show of fighting for the tea. We cut open the hatches, and some of the men went down and passed up the chests, while others cut 'em open and emptied the green stuff into the water. The crew of the vessel were afeard to stir ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... was partly suspended on both sides to await the issue of the conflict. "Moore had shot the chief, wounding him in the knee, but not so badly as to prevent him from standing. Moore advanced toward him, and the Indian threw his tomahawk, but missed him. Moore sprung at him with his large butcher-knife drawn, which the Indian caught by the blade and attempted to wrest from the hand of his antagonist. Holding on with desperate tenacity to the knife, both clinched with their left hands. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... intervals an aged relative will arise and dance excitedly around the central person, vociferating, and with wild gesture, tomahawk in hand, imprecate the evil spirit, which he drives to the land where the sun goes down. The evil spirit being thus effectually banished, the mourning gradually subsides, blending into succeeding scenes ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... the overseer most hospitably stood by the party as it passed with a bucket of milk, of which he gave a drink to each of the men. Bultje put us on the right road to the next nearest water-holes (Mr. Gilmore's station), and having rendered me the service he promised, I gave him the tomahawk, pipe, and two figs of tobacco promised him, and also took a sketch of his singularly Socratic face. This native got a bad name from various stockmen, as having been implicated in the murder of Mr. Cunningham. Nothing could be more unfounded; and it must indeed require ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... end there, however, for along in the darkest hours of the night I started from sleep and saw those two Indians, one standing at the head and one at the foot of the bed, and each of them armed with a tomahawk. That they had come to kill me I was certain, and that they would succeed in doing so seemed to me equally sure. I tried to scream but I could not. I was as powerless as a baby. I finally managed to move and as I did so I saw them vanish through ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... could be any doubt of the success of this new hand, it was quickly removed by the conduct of Peter Pindar himself. As is not unusual with persons of his habits, Wolcot was extremely sensitive, and, brandishing a tomahawk, always himself shrank from a scratch. This was shown some years afterwards by his violent assault on Mr. Gifford, with a bludgeon, in a bookseller's shop, because the author of the "Baviad and Maeviad" had presumed to castigate the great lampooner of the age. In the present instance, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... but the hunter's eyes were not closed, and the carcajou quivered on the point of my spear. I heard the wolf howl as he looked at the moon, and the beams that feel upon his upturned face shewed my tomahawk the spot it was to enter. I marked where the panther had crouched, and, before he could spring, my arrow went into his heart. Behold the ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... a hundred of the enemy, and they approached us in a solid phalanx of five or six rows, each row consisting of eighteen or twenty warriors. Their project no doubt was, that so soon as any of us was speared by the warriors, the inoffensive spies in the camp were to tomahawk us at their leisure, as we rolled about in agony from our wounds; but, taken by surprise, their otherwise exceedingly well-organised attack, owing to a slight change in our supper-hour, was a little too late, and our fire caused a great commotion and wavering in their legion's ordered ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... with war-paint an' tomahawk, yo' understan'," continued the old man, enjoying the boy's astonishment, "but uncivilized an' wild. Thar an't any finer stock in the world, he said, than the mount'neers o' the Ridge, clar down to Tennessee, an' he said, too, that they were o' the good old ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... reservation of the Otoe Indians, who long ago washed the war-paint from their faces, buried the tomahawk, and settled down into ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne
... and children. Some of the tribes lived in the north, some in the south, some near the sea. In nearly every part of the country there were Indian tribes. Often some of the tribes went to war with other tribes. They fought with bows and arrows and tomahawks. The tomahawk was a sort of hatchet. The head of it was made of a stone with ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... these requirements, so it must be cut out bodily from the stem of an iron-bark tree, and the nearer the heart he can manage to get, the better will be his weapon. His sole tool with which to attack a giant iron-bark is a miserable tomahawk, or hatchet, made of stone, but little superior to the rude Celtic flint axe-heads, that may be seen in any antiquarian's collection. These are of a very hard stone, frequently of a greenish hue, and resembling jade; and, having been rubbed smooth, are fitted with ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... Kendal explained. "No sooner are you out of the train than the Indians tomahawk you! Look at this ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the guardian who would have married her for her estates; you are the cousin who played the poltroon and outraged her pride of family; you are the lover who abandoned her,—abandoned her to torture and the tomahawk. Is it strange that it is her wish never to see you? You will spare your pride some hurts if you avoid her ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... caving in the entire door, bursting it back upon its hinges. In through the opening the red mob hurled itself, reckless of death or wounds, mad with the thirst for victory; a jam of naked beasts, crazed by the smell of blood—a wave of slaughter, crested with brandished guns and gleam of tomahawk. ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... the forest something almost supernatural. One day some Indians, having taken away a horse of his, he put on his armor, pursued them alone, and soon overtook them. The chief of the party seeing him approach unsupported, advanced menacingly with uplifted tomahawk. Prescott dared him to strike, and was immediately taken at his word, but the rude weapon glanced harmless from the helmet, to the amazement of the red men. Naturally the Indian desired to try upon his own head so wonderful a hat, and the owner obligingly ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. II. No. 5, February, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... in the papers, where naturally I read only of myself, I gather a general impression of offensive aggressiveness, that, coupled with Chase's monstrous lampoon, has prepared me for the tomahawk on landing. ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... them, cut the traces of the sleds, and carried off two of the horses, the third being given up by intercession of an Indian who seemed to possess some authority over them; they also took away two of the men's knifes, and a tomahawk, which last however they returned. We sent up to the Mandans to inform them of it, and to know whether any of them would join a party which intended to pursue the robbers in the morning. About twelve o'clock two of their chiefs came down and said that all their young men were ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... with a dead Indian the Onondagas buried a kettle of provisions, a pair of moccasins, a piece of deer skin and sinews of the deer to sew patches on the moccasins, which it was supposed the deceased would wear out on his journey. They also furnished him with a bow and arrows, a tomahawk and knife, to procure game with to live on while pursuing his way to the land of spirits, the blissful regions of Ha wah ne u.20 Several Indian nations, instead of burying the food, suspended it above the grave, and renewed it from time to time. Some writers ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... jerked me violently forward; then pulled my mule by the bridle, and in a moment I was completely surrounded. Before I could do anything at all, they had seized my revolvers from the holsters, and I received a blow on the head from a tomahawk which nearly rendered me senseless. My gun, which was lying across the saddle, was snatched from its place, and finally the Indian who had hold of the bridle started off toward the Arkansas River, leading the mule, which was being lashed by the other Indians, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... Indian girl handed the youth his tomahawk and knife, and then obeyed his commands with as much alacrity as if she had been his legal squaw. The warrior then resumed his former position, placing the willow-withes which had bound him in such a manner as readily to appear, by the light of the fire, as if they ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... friends the English and you in person fight for them. We Mohawks know whom to hate. We know that the French have robbed us more than any others. We know, that their Quebec is our Stadacona. So we have dug up the tomahawk and last night we showed to Sharp Sword and his men and Tandakora the Ojibway how ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... as these urged on the inevitable war, for which the Indians now openly prepared. Even the mighty Mingo chief, Logan, who had ever extended the hand of friendship to the white man, now appeared with uplifted tomahawk to avenge the unprovoked murder of his friends. Some eight hundred warriors were soon assembled, thirsting to avenge these recent murders, and eager to establish their right to the disputed territory. Logan, ...
— Tecumseh - A Chronicle of the Last Great Leader of His People; Vol. - 17 of Chronicles of Canada • Ethel T. Raymond
... made of skins were a sufficiently respectable garb; and buckskin breeches dyed green were enough to captivate the heart of any girl who wished a fashionable lover; but by the time that he had become a young man, most self-respecting men had suits of jeans. The ugly butcher's knife and tomahawk, which had been essential as was the rapier to the costume of gentlemen two centuries earlier, began now to be more rarely seen at the belt about the waist. The women wore linsey-woolsey gowns, of home ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Jeffery as reviewers, or Byron and Southey as poets, you will be followed more from the fear of your pen than from the splendour of your talents, the consistency of your conduct, or the morality of your principles. Sir, if you can but use the tomahawk skilfully, your fortune is certain. 'Sic itur ad astra.' Read Blackwood's Noctea Ambrosiance. Take the town by surprise, folly by the ears; 'the glory, jest, and riddle of the world' is man; use your knowledge of this ancient ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... collision with the Indian was unavoidable, and without the least hesitation prepared himself for it. The savage was a Miami—a brawny, muscular warrior, fully six feet in height, of matchless symmetry and formidable strength. When the combatants were perhaps a dozen yards apart, he raised his tomahawk over his head, and poising it a moment, hurled it, with a most deadly force, full at the head of the hunter. The latter had not expected such a demonstration as this, but had detected it in time to avoid it. He dropped his head the instant the weapon left the savage's hand, and it ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... southward, and at a large reach of water below, found the natives camped. They made a great commotion when we rode up, but seemed very friendly. I unpacked my blanket, and took out specimens of the things I intended giving them,—a tomahawk, a knife, beads, a looking-glass, comb, and flour and sugar. The tomahawk was the great object of attraction, after that the knife, but I think the looking-glass surprised them most. On seeing their faces reflected, some seemed dazzled, others opened their eyes like saucers, and made ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... interposed, saying, "Your life is more valuable." Her daughter Margaret, then about twelve years of age, hearing this, ran down for the baby, snatched it from the cradle, and started up the stairs with it. An Indian threw a tomahawk at her. It grazed the infant's head, cut a hole in Margaret's dress, and lodged in the mahogany stair rail. That infant became Mrs. Cochrane, and Margaret became the wife of Stephen Van Rensselaer, the Patroon, at Albany. The mansion yet stands; and well up the stairway may be seen ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... knife, provided and worn for the purpose, makes a circular incision to the bone round the upper part of the head, and tears off the scalp with his fingers. Previous to this execution, he generally despatches the prisoner by repeated blows on the head, with the hammer-side of the instrument called a tomahawk: but sometimes they save themselves the trouble, and sometimes the blows prove ineffectual; so that the miserable patient is found alive, groaning in the utmost agony of torture. The Indian strings the scalps he has procured, to be produced as a testimony of his prowess, and receives ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... wampum belts and other tokens brought by the envoys from the lakes, who represented nine distinct tribes or bands from the region of Michillimackinac. By these tokens, the nine tribes declared that they came to learn wisdom of the Iroquois and the English; to wash off the war-paint, throw down the tomahawk, smoke the pipe of peace, and unite with them as one body. "Onontio is drunk," such was the interpretation of the fourth wampum belt; "but we, the tribes of Michillimackinac, wash our hands of all his actions. Neither we nor you must defile ourselves by listening to him." ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman |
