During the winter of 1762-63 his messengers passed stealthily
from nation to nation throughout the whole western country,
bearing the pictured wampum belts and the reddened tomahawks
which symbolized war; and in April, 1763, the Lake tribes were
summoned to a great council on the banks of the Ecorces, below
Detroit, where Pontiac in person proclaimed the will of the
Master of Life as revealed to the Delaware prophet, and then
announced the details of his plan. Everywhere the appeal met with
approval; and not only the scores of Algonquin peoples, but also
the Seneca branch of the Iroquois confederacy and a number of
tribes on the lower Mississippi, pledged themselves with all
solemnity to fulfill their prophet's injunction "to drive the
dogs which wear red clothing into the sea." While keen-eyed
warriors sought to keep up appearances by lounging about the
forts and begging in their customary manner for tobacco, whiskey,
and gunpowder, every wigwam and forest hamlet from Niagara to the
Mississippi was astir. Dusky maidens chanted the tribal
war-songs, and in the blaze of a hundred camp-fires chiefs and
warriors performed the savage pantomime of battle.
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