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Tomahawk   /tˈɑməhˌɔk/   Listen
Tomahawk

noun
1.
Weapon consisting of a fighting ax; used by North American Indians.  Synonym: hatchet.






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"Tomahawk" Quotes from Famous Books



... the great warriors he had conquered. His son, Flying Deer, who is with us to-day, will address you in his own language, which I shall interpret for you. The last twenty years have made a great change in their condition. These men are not savages, but educated gentlemen. They are all graduates of Tomahawk College, at Bloody Mountain, near the Gray Wolf country. They are chiefs of their tribes, each one holding a position equal to the Governor of our own State. Their influence at the West is great. Last year they sent a small party of missionaries to the highlands ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... 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 of feasting and refreshment. The burial feast ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... of the Bushwhack Tribe. My tomahawk is in my belt, and whoever offends me will add his scalp ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... armed only with tomahawk and knife, and they had expected a surprise which they might have effected if it had not been for Robert's keenness, but more of them came continually and they made a formidable attack. Sending forth yell after ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... set the interior aflame. It was the members of the western vanguard, like Daniel Boone, John Sevier, and George Rogers Clark, who first understood the value of the far-away country under the guns of the English forts, where the Red Men still wielded the tomahawk and the scalping knife. It was they who gave the East no rest until their vision was seen by the leaders on the seaboard who directed the course of national policy. It was one of their number, a seasoned Indian fighter, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... me, admire me, 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 death down here, in some cur'us, unbeknown, hole-in-the-dark way, by a furrin' man who ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the first general court of Connecticut convened at Hartford, upward of thirty persons had fallen beneath the tomahawk. The promptest measures were necessary; and without waiting for the assistance of Massachusetts, whose indiscretion had brought on the war, ninety men (nearly half the effective force of the colony) were raised,[8] and placed under the command of ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... accustomed to this airy costume in the mother-land. Common to all were fringed hunting shirts or smocks, generally of buckskin—a picturesque, flowing garment reaching from neck to knees, and girded about the waist by a leathern belt, from which dangled the tomahawk and scalping-knife. On one hip hung the carefully scraped powder horn; on the other, a leather sack, serving both as game-bag and provision-pouch, although often the folds of the shirt, full and ample above ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... 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 ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell

... years after this house was built, that the Indians in a foray upon Haverhill burned many houses and killed or captured forty persons, including the heroic Hannah Dustin, in whom they caught a veritable tartar. Her statue with uplifted tomahawk stands in front of the City Hall. It is possible that on her return to Haverhill she brought her ten Indian ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard

... intentions were pacific. About the same time, he dispatched a message to the Delawares, who were friendly, asking them to join him in a war against the United States, stating that he had taken up the tomahawk and would not lay it down but with his life, unless their wrongs were redressed. The Delaware chiefs immediately visited the prophet to dissuade him from commencing hostilities and were grossly insulted. ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... Instead, burning rafters and smoking ruins: around, the ground was trodden down by many feet of moccasined men. Partly consumed by the fire, lay the bodies of two farm-servants who had been in Mr. Buckingham's employ; a tomahawk, smeared with fresh blood, lay among the smoking embers; and a golden curl singed by fire, was near it—all they could ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... had numberless new experiences. She got accustomed to seeing the boys climb big trees by cutting steps in the bark with a tomahawk, going out on the most giddy heights after birds' nests, or dragging the opossum from his sleeping-place in a hollow limb. She learned to hold a frenzied fox-terrier at the mouth of a hollow log, ready ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... it he got to shoot a 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 ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun

... House,' he said, pointing with his finger towards the Settlement, 'Indian want kill white man, one, two, three, six, all!' and he clutched the tomahawk at his belt with a gruesome gesture. 'Indian come, see White Man sit in house; no gun, no arrow, no knife; all quiet, all still, worshipping Great Spirit. Great Spirit inside Indian too;' he pointed to his ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... the young man;—"a reggelar cross on the breast, and a good tomahawk dig right through the skull; and a long-legg'd fellow, too, that looked as though he might ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... while his eyes were yet clear to behold him. Over forty years had he worn it, from the time he received it in London from Queen Anne. He asked him to kneel at his couch, and, putting his withered hand across his brow, placed the feathery crown upon his head, and gave him the silver-mounted tomahawk—symbols of power to rule and power to execute. Then, looking up to the heavens, he said, as if in despair for his race, 'The hills are our pillows, and the broad plains to the west our hunting-grounds; our brothers are called into the bright wigwam of the Everlasting, ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce

... 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

... with a jovial "Now we shan't be long," and shouldering a tomahawk, led the way out of the ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... I 'll come..." said the apothecary vehemently, a providential idea darting through his mind. He went in, put on his frock-coat, felt in its pocket to assure himself that his latchkey was there, and also the American tomahawk, without which no Tarasconese whatsoever would risk himself in the streets after "taps." Then he called: "Pascalon!.. Pascalon!.." but not too loudly, for fear of waking ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet

... 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 in a man ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell

... together. They declined smoking 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 forts, and knew how to use ...
— 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

... thrilling interest; and, given as they are, either in the handwriting or directly from the lips of those who, miraculously escaping the perils of the tomahawk, the rifle, and starvation, both saw and suffered, from the incidents they relate, bear throughout the unmistakable impress of truth, and must carry conviction to the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... of 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 first instance, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... from a tomahawk disfigured his head; the woolly hair was matted with blood. But there remained still something of the PREUX CHEVALIER ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed

... will suppose our planter to have escaped the scalping knife and tomahawk; and in the course of years situate in a thick, settled neighbourhood of planters like himself, who have struggled through all the foregoing difficulties: he is now a man of some consequence, builds a house by the side of his former hut, which now ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest

... veins. Although we prided ourselves on our quality as "braves," and secretly pined to be led on the war-path, we were shy of walking in that vicinity in daylight, and no power on earth, not even the offer of the tomahawk or snow-shoes for which our souls longed, would have taken us ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... sprang 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 lay among the dead ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... indoctrinated Mr. Fitz-Urse, Sir George takes another of his guests, and proceeds to work upon him. "My dear Mr. Bludyer, how do you do? Mr. Fitz-Boodle, Mr. Bludyer, the brilliant and accomplished wit, whose sallies in the Tomahawk delight us every Saturday. Nay, no blushes, my dear sir; you are very wicked, but oh! SO pleasant. Well, Mr. Bludyer, I am glad to see you, sir, and hope you will have a favourable opinion of our genius, sir. As I was saying to Mr. Fitz-Boodle, she has ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... until two Chippewas came unsuspectedly along the path. When opposite, the Sioux boys fired and the Chippewa in the lead fell dead. The one in the rear fled with his gun over his shoulder and was pursued instantly by young Little Crow with tomahawk in hand. The Chippewa discharged his gun backward as he ran and killed the young man as he was about to bury his tomahawk in the Chippewa's brain. Little Crow's comrade took the scalp of the dead Chippewa, returned to Kaposia, ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various

... Washington. Troubles came thicker and thicker upon her. The Creek Nation, the most powerful of the independent Indian tribes, instigated partly by English agents, partly by the mysterious native prophet Tecumseh, suddenly descended with fire and tomahawk on the scattered settlements of the South-West, while at the same time a British fleet appeared in the Gulf of Mexico, apparently meditating either an attack on New Orleans or an invasion through the Spanish territory of Western ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... 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 ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... 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

... not gone more than two hundred yards before we found the old man's body; it was laying behind a log with every indication of a hand-to-hand fight. One arrow was stuck in his body near the heart, and there were several tomahawk's wounds on the head and shoulders, which showed that he ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan

... young woman looks toward the bound captive. She sees a warrior, scarce older than the captive, flourishing a tomahawk in the Dakota's face. A burning rage darts forth from her eyes and brands him for a victim of revenge. Her heart mutters within her breast, "Come, I wish to meet you, vile foe, who captured my lover and tortures him now with ...
— American Indian stories • Zitkala-Sa

... her handkerchief; it bade them, "hasten, hasten!" Then Blue-beard stamped his foot so hard it made the whole house jar; And, rushing up to where his wife knelt, swung his glittering cutlass, As Indians do a tomahawk, and shrieked: "How slow ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... my trade or my sport, I never loaded myself with fowling-piece or rifle. Assiduous exercise had made me master of a weapon of much easier carriage, and, within a moderate distance, more destructive and unerring. This was the tomahawk. With this I have often severed an oak-branch, and cut the sinews of a catamount, at ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown

... government, helped to stir up the disputes which led to the war; and as they had made their bed, so they must lie in it. Secondly, such of them as had been concerned in burning and plundering defenceless villages, and wielding the tomahawk in concert with bloodthirsty Indians, deserved no compassion. It was rather for them to make compensation for the misery they had wrought. Thirdly, the confiscated Tory property had passed into the hands of purchasers who had bought it in good faith ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... lonely in the gloomy splendour of a Northern sky. A ship put to sea, and Gourlay heard in his ears the skirl of the man who went overboard—struck dead by the icy water on his brow, which smote the brain like a tomahawk. ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown

... to Kentucky. He settled in the "dark and bloody ground," and for years encountered all the trials then incident to border life. The earliest impressions of young Zachary were the sudden foray of the savage foe, the piercing warwhoop, the answering cry of defiance, the gleam of the tomahawk, the crack of the rifle, the homestead saved by his father's daring, the neighboring cottage wrapped in flames, or its hearth-stone red with blood. Such scenes bound his young nerves with iron, and fired his fresh ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... spears, short truncheons of bone, somewhat like the patoo patoo of New Zealand, and a small pick-axe, not unlike the common American tomahawk. The spear has generally a long point, made of bone. Some of the arrows are pointed with iron; but most commonly their points were of indented bone. The tomahawk is a stone, six or eight inches long, pointed at one end, and the other end fixed into a handle of wood. This handle resembles the head and neck of the human figure; and the stone is fixed in the mouth, so as to represent an enormously large tongue. To make the resemblance still stronger, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... the 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 country has ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... wonderful stone buildings was "Blow me!" He had expected to find that the great Canadian city of Montreal would be just a few slab shacks, with forests on all sides, and painted Indians prowling, tomahawk in hand, in search of scalps. When he left the big Atlantic liner with twenty other raw English lads of his own street-bred sort, he thought he was saying good-bye to civilization forever. And here, all around him, arose the massive stone-built city, teeming ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... spirit and temper of the sectarian. He breathed too broad an atmosphere to live and move within such narrow bounds. In the heat of the conflict there may have been too much occasionally of the partisan; and in the pleasure that the sweep and stroke of his intellectual tomahawk gave to him who wielded it, he may have forgotten at times the pain inflicted where it fell; but let his writings before and after the Disruption be now consulted, and it will be found that it was mainly because of his firm belief, whether ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... you will; but there is to be no more fumbling at the knot. We will cut it now at a blow—cut it clean and sharp with the tomahawk!" ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... 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 we could ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... liable to be shot, like any one else; but the Indian that does it has got to be mighty smart to get ahead of him. Plenty of them have tried it with knife and tomahawk, but they never lived to try it on any one else. But that ain't the most wonderful part of it," added Jack, shaking his head and gesticulating in his excitement with both arms; "Deerfoot knows a good deal more about books ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... brain capacities of the two races. Next I went and inspected the Armoured Car Section of the Royal Naval Division under Lieutenant-Commander Wedgwood. He is a mighty queer chap. Took active part in the South African War. Afterwards became a pacifist M.P.; here he is again with war paint and tomahawk. Give me a Pacifist in peace and a Jingo in war. Too often it is ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... both in and out of Parliament, it became a question whether all this was for good or evil. The Boffinites had of course much to say for themselves. Everything was torpid. There was no interest in the newspapers,—except when Mr. Slide took the tomahawk into his hands. A member of Parliament this Session had not been by half so much bigger than another man as in times of hot political warfare. One of the most moving sources of our national excitement seemed to have vanished ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... house. One fella Adamu he stop along outside pickaninny house. You fella boy finish 'm dog, finish 'm Adamu, finish 'm big fella marster, finish 'm White Mary, finish 'em altogether. Plenty musket he stop, plenty powder, plenty tomahawk, plenty knife-fee, plenty porpoise teeth, plenty tobacco, plenty calico—my word, too much plenty everything we take 'm along whale-boat, washee {5} like hell, sun he come up we ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... And I,"—he laughed as he said this,—"have succeeded in getting over it better than might have been expected. At any rate I hope that there will be no ill-will. I shall do myself the honour of asking you and Mr. Western to come and dine with me at the Criterion. It is the little place that Lord Tomahawk had last year." Then he departed without another ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... Hurons, Iroquois, Canadians, New Yorkers, New Englanders, French, English, Continentals and Hessians, who proceeded in their mission of destruction and vengeance. As the district occupied by the Highlanders was close to the line of Burgoyne's march, it experienced the realities of war and the tomahawk of the merciless savage. How terrible was the work of the ruthless savage, and how shocking the fate of those in his pathway, has been graphically related by Arthur Reid, a native of the township of Argyle, who received ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... ride and of the snow down his back, he was standing before the feathered head-dress of a Sioux Chief and touching the tomahawk below it. He turned as she spoke. "Those must be scalp-locks—three." He saw the prairie, the wild pursuit—saw them as she could not. He went after her upstairs, the girl talking, the boy rapt, lost in far-away battles ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... 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 and left ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London

... Saturday Review has neither this, that, nor the other qualification. Indeed his words read like subtle and lurking irony by the light of those phenomenal and portentous vagaries which ever and anon illuminate his opaque pages. What correctness can we expect from a journal whose tomahawk-man, when scalping the corpse of Matthew Arnold, deliberately applies the term "sonnet" to some thirty lines in heroic couplets? His confusion of Dr. Jenner, Vaccinator, with Sir William Jenner, the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... cursing, the rain and mist over it all, and the night coming on. And then, suddenly, the rush of Indians at our back, and over the breastwork. I had my pistol in my hand, you remember, Tom, but the powder flashed in the pan, and the foremost of the savages was upon me. I saw his tomahawk in the air, and I remember wondering who would best command when I was dead. But your aim was true and your powder dry, and when the tomahawk fell, it fell harmless, ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... admirable skill and dexterity. There is another mode of fishing in which these people also excel: this is fishing on the ice when the lakes are frozen over—a sport that requires the exercise of great patience. The Indian, provided with his tomahawk, with which he makes an opening in the ice, a spear, his blanket, and a decoy-fish of wood, proceeds to the place he has fixed upon. Having cut a hole in the ice he places himself on hands and knees, and casts his blanket over him, so as to darken the water and conceal ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... 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 Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... power, with the aid of the following implements, placed in his hands for that purpose, if necessary, viz:—Law, when the party is worthy of that attention and proper testimony can be had, a good cudgel, tomahawk, cutlass, gun and blunderbuss, with powder, shot and bullets, ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... him dear. Five of Alizay's comrades, led by Magadar, came upon the scene, and, as it happened, Cheenbuk's back chanced to be towards them. They did not dare to fire, for fear of hitting their comrade, but they rushed unitedly forward with tomahawk ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... see that, the Berlin philosopher is really on a lower mental level than the Arab who respects the salt, or the Brahmin who preserves the caste. And in this quarrel we have a right to come with scimitars as well as sabres, with bows as well as rifles, with assegai and tomahawk and boomerang, because there is in all these at least a seed of civilisation that these intellectual anarchists would kill. And if they should find us in our last stand girt with such strange swords and following unfamiliar ensigns, and ask us for what we fight in so singular a company, ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton

... head. Lucien's dress was somewhat more civilised in its appearance than that of his elder brother. Like him though he had a leather belt, with a sheath and knife on one side; and, instead of a pistol, a small tomahawk on the other. Not that Lucien had set out with the intention of tomahawking anybody. No; he carried his little hatchet for cracking rocks, not skulls. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... Claws," said Agnes; and Diddie thought that was so funny that she giggled outright, and in a moment the wardrobe was opened and she was also taken prisoner. Then the four little captives were laid on their backs, and Polly scalped them with a clothes-brush for a tomahawk. ...
— Diddie, Dumps & Tot - or, Plantation child-life • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle

... brought eighteen savage nations under his dominion, so that they obeyed his slightest word. With majestic sweep of the limbs he whirled through the pantomime of capturing and scalping an enemy, struck the painted post with his tomahawk, and raised the awful war whoop. His young braves stamped and yelled with him. Another leaped into the ring, sung his deeds, and struck the painted post, warrior after warrior following, until a wild ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... From the one they 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 ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston

... proceeded on a bearing of 290 degrees, following one of the native tracks running in that direction. At about a mile they became invisible; for that distance I observed that a line of trees was marked down each side of the track by cutting a small piece of bark from off the gum-trees with a tomahawk. This I had never seen natives do before; the marks are very old. At eighteen miles and a half struck another track (the trees cut in the same way) crossing our course; followed it, bearing 10 degrees east of north, and at about two miles came on a native well with moisture in it. Followed ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... heart beat high with expectation. He almost felt the warm body of the noble steed beneath him. And now, inch by inch, he stole forward, like an Indian scout moving upon a sleeping enemy until he could reach a point where he could bury his tomahawk in his skull. ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne

... place with his light, and they all crowded up behind him. A bed of ashes smouldered, and around it, in deep oblivion of well-earned sleep, lay thirteen blanketed braves, a trusty weapon—tomahawk or ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... 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 among ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... again pitched in the bed of the creek. A large 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 W. 1/2 W. ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine

... "Dear me! What have we here?" and drew him to the next shop, at the door of which stood a wooden Indian, a tomahawk in one hand, and a cigar-box in the other. Dr. Lavendar bade David wait outside while he went into this shop, which the little boy was perfectly willing to do, for it isn't every day you get the ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland

... old man I did not now see; I was dragged along between Kish-kau-ko and a very short thick man. I had probably made some resistance, or done something to irritate this last, for he took me a little to one side, and drawing his tomahawk, motioned to me to look up. This I plainly understood, from the expression of his face, and his manner, to be a direction for me to look up for the last time, as he was about to kill me. I did as he directed, but Kish-kau-ko caught his hand as the tomahawk was ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang

... River Valley is well known to most of my readers from its romantic association with the struggles of the vast army of emigrants, who not only braved the dangers of its uncertain fords and deceitful quicksands, but the tomahawk and scalp knife, ofttimes leaving a nameless grave beside its waters; and, were it not for a laughable incident in this connection, I ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... it. It had pleased more than one critic to treat his Lordship's first work in 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, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... savages would prove very useful as scouts and guides, and that by offers of reward and threats of punishment they might be restrained from deeds of violence. They were very unruly, however, and apt to use the tomahawk when they found ...
— The War of Independence • John Fiske

... colour, as in many parts of Asia. An Indian never eats with his guest, but serves him. Their nomadic life, their choice of war-chiefs, the difficulty of pronouncing labials, the use of the battleaxe or tomahawk, which is absolutely Tartarian, the worship of the Good and the Evil Spirit, form other points of resemblance. West says, that the emblems of the Indian nations are similar to those of the Israelitish tribes, ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... about five feet tall and sturdily built. She was dressed in a single garment, made of the skin of some yellow, short-haired animal. It may have been a lion cub. Around her waist was a strip of hide, which served as a belt, and held a small, stone-headed tomahawk. One shoulder and both legs were left quite bare, revealing a complexion so deeply tanned that ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... was slippery with blood, and the rest were keeping their ground with difficulty. I had a long and severe hand-to-hand fight with one of them. We had each received desperate wounds, when his foot slipped on the bloody deck. I gave him a severe stroke on the head with a tomahawk, and, after a deadly struggle on the gangway, tumbled him backwards overboard. The moon shone bright out at the moment, and fell full upon his face. Merciful heaven!—my brain reeled, I staggered against a gun, and became insensible—that face, Mr. Stewart, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... deep lying. Fasted then Guteba long, and vowed unto Himself that, cold in death or rich In life, the maiden should be found; Across his shoulder flung his bow And arrow quiver; in his belt Placed tomahawk and battle-ax And lance; to westward sallied forth, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various

... missionaries he 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 ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell

... with a tomahawk, and covered him over with logs and grass and my shirt and trousers. That night I left him near dark. I would go through the scrub, and the blacks threw spears at me, a good many, and I went back again into the scrub. Then I went down the creek which runs into Escape ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... two fires. "Human imagination," well says Colonel Humphreys, "can hardly figure to itself a more deplorable situation." Putnam remained more than an hour deprived of all power save that of hearing and vision, as the musket-balls whizzed by his ears and a ruthless savage aimed his tomahawk repeatedly, with the infernal dexterity of a Chinese juggler, within a hair's breadth of his person. This amusement was succeeded by the attempt of a French petty-officer to put an end to his life by discharging his musket against his breast. It happily missed fire. The action ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... 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 restored ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver

... ages long since passed away, the war-whoop resounded through the forest. The shriek of mothers and maidens pierced the skies as they fell cleft by the tomahawk; and all the horrid clangor of war, with "its terror, conflagration, tears, and blood," imbittered ten thousand fold the ever bitter ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... cruelty, which have been deemed their leading traits, have been merely the natural accompaniments of wars of self-preservation, and no more indicated their genuine character than the war-paint, plume and tomahawk of the warrior displayed the customary guise in which he appeared among his own people. The cruelties of war, when war is a struggle for national existence, are common to all races. The persistent desire for peace, pursued for centuries in federal unions, and in alliances ...
— The Iroquois Book of Rites • Horatio Hale

... found in the "Magnalia." I miss this noble savage's name in our 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 of clergyman ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... tomahawk in the air over the youthful warrior's head, but the brave sprang aside as quick as lightning, and in the same instant speared his enemy to the heart. As the Ojibway chief gave a gasping yell and fell in death, his people lost courage; while the success of the brave Jingling Thunder strengthened ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... startled the mind into a direction remote from philosophy, quickened the heart to a beat that chimed with no household affections. Involuntarily I stooped; impulsively I struck the block with the hatchet, or tomahawk, I carried habitually about me, for the purpose of marking the trees that I wished to clear from the waste of my broad domain. The quartz was shattered by the stroke, and left disburied its glittering treasure. My first ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... 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. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... being, who walked about the world, doing what evil he could. One day he swallowed the eagle-god. The wives of the eagle came up, and the Moon asked them where he might find a well. They pointed out a well, and, as he drank, they hit the Moon with a stone tomahawk, and out flew the eagle. {54c} This is oddly like Grimm's tale of 'The Wolf and the Kids.' The wolf swallowed the kids, their mother cut a hole in the wolf, let out the kids, stuffed the wolf with stones, and sewed ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heels against an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid are chums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe of peace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring on a tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry

... Beaujardin, and at one moment 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, ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... fist. Undaunted the braves of Wakawa's band Leaped into the thicket with lance and knife, And grappled the Chippeways hand to hand; And foe with foe, in the deadly strife, Lay clutching the scalp of his foe and dead, With a tomahawk sunk in his ghastly head, Or his still heart sheathing a bloody blade. Like a bear in the battle Wakawa raves, And cheers the hearts of his falling braves. But a panther crouches along his track— ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon

... long duration. The Indians, in a body, cautiously approached till within a short distance: they then halted, took deliberate aim, discharged their pieces upon inanimate logs, gave a dreadful war-whoop, and instantly rushed forward, with tomahawk and scalping knife in hand, to dispatch the living, and obtain ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... 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 revolver, he motioned ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... heard, and turning they saw under a bush a mastiff, standing over the body of a child. The animal could with difficulty keep its legs; it had been pierced by a lance, and had received a blow with a tomahawk on the head which had nearly cut off one of its ears. It had doubtless been left for dead, but had recovered itself, and crawled to the side of one of the children of the family to which it belonged. Its head was covered with matted blood, ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty

... the general consternation and dismay which were every where spreading around them; and many a staid heart among them secretly trembled for the fate of the near and dear ones left at homes in which the red tomahawk might, even at that very moment, be busy at its work of death; while the bosoms of all were burning to be freed from their present duties, that they might seize the sword or musket and fly to the relief ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... Of those eyes whose strange, mysterious power cast Spell upon her heart, that thrilled to swift response. Dark eyes softened, flashed again with sudden fire, Pocahontas stood entranced, as in a dream, Watched the heavy stones laid on the hardened earth, Saw the Brave led forth, the tomahawk upraised— Awful moment's hush was pierced by anguished cry, As around the captive's neck her arms were flung, Precious life to save, the maiden's ...
— Pocahontas. - A Poem • Virginia Carter Castleman

... the rest, and blaze away into the gloom. We brought our bed up to the window, so that we could shoot without getting out of it, while snugly wrapped up in our blankets. After this our luck improved, and after each discharge we would rush out, armed with a tomahawk, dispatch the wounded wolves, and collect the dead ones, until we had slaughtered forty-two of them. We skinned them, and sold the pelts to the traders for seventy-five cents a piece, which money was the first of ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau

... about to rush down stairs for the child, when the General 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, March 30, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... legislator of one of the most flourishing and virtuous colonies that, in those days of tribulation, settled in the wilderness of North America; a colony of men who were true to their enlightened principles, and who were saved from the murderous tomahawk of the Indian, when all other settlements were scenes of cruelty ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord

... be a frost, to take her ivies down and carry them in the house. We don't care how handsome a woman is naturally, you put a towel around her head and put her up on a step ladder about seven feet high, with a tomahawk in her left hand, trying to draw a big nail out of a post on a veranda, and she looks like thunder. This woman did. Her husband tried to get her to let him do the work, but she said a man never knew how to do anything, anyway. So he sat down on the steps to see how it would turn out. ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck

... precious ten shillings; but each carried a blanket which Mrs. Elliott had found for them. Then Chippy carried a tin billy—a present from their instructor—and Dick bore, slung at his belt, a tiny axe, tomahawk shape, its head weighing fourteen ounces. This was intended for cutting wood; and, beside the axe, each had a strong, sharp jack-knife, with spring back, so that the blade could not close on the fingers. Being patrol-leaders, ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore

... I 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 magic world ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... Brant, tried hard to resist the progress of that awful human wedge that was driven with relentless fury among the wigwams of those who had burned the homes in beautiful Wyoming, who had despoiled with the bloody tomahawk the settlement at German Flats, and had closed the horrid campaign with the cruel massacre at Cherry Valley. Bold and daring in this revengeful expedition was Colonel Philip Van Cortlandt, a name honored in all Dutch civil and military history. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various

... sublime gentleman of the same 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 ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... put aside my bow and quiver, and with them all desire of meat and all thought of killing. With my tomahawk I cut a mark in that chestnut yonder and buried my weapon at the foot of it. I had my knife, my pipe, and my fire-stick. Also I felt happy and important because my mother had made me believe that the Holder of the Heavens thought well of me. I was giving him a year in which to tell me ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al

... have been. Remember that, instead of cherishing tender affections, imbibing refined sentiments, exploring the field of science, and assuming the name and character of the sons of God, you might as easily have been dozing in the smoke of a wigwam, brandishing a tomahawk, or dancing round an emboweled captive; or that you might yourself have been emboweled by the hand of superstition, and burnt on the altars of Moloch. If you remember these things, you can not but call to mind, also, who made you to differ ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser

... claimant's value, and would have before his eyes a wholesome fear of the 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 ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... and Indians, having crossed the frozen Detroit River the day before, formed within musket shot of the American lines and opened the attack with a battery of three-pounders. They might have rushed the camp with bayonet and tomahawk and killed most of the defenders asleep, but the cannonade alarmed the Kentuckians and they took cover behind a picket fence, using their long rifles so expertly that they killed or wounded a hundred and eighty-five of the British regulars, who ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... ought to have been more careful. Why, the very chief of that village at Numa Numa—the man who cut him down with a tomahawk—had killed two other white men. Ferguson knew that, and yet would allow him to come aboard time after time with hundreds of his people, and gave him and them the run of his ship. I knew the fellow well. He told me to my face, the first time I met him, that he had ...
— The Flemmings And "Flash Harry" Of Savait - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke

... the past, why, all may be well yet. I can see that the border is the place for me. But now, Jim, for once in your life take a word of advice from me. We're out on the frontier, where every man looks after himself. Your being a minister won't protect you here where every man wears a knife and a tomahawk, and where most of them are desperadoes. Cut out that soft voice and most of your gentle ways, and be a little more like your brother. Be as kind as you like, and preach all you want to; but when some of these buckskin-legged frontiermen try to walk all over you, as they will, take your ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey

... streams were swollen. There was snow on the ground. Mrs. Dustin had but one shoe; the other foot was bare; it was torn by the stones, chilled by the cold. Every step was marked with blood. Her fellow-captives fainted and fell one by one, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife finished them. All except Mrs. Dustin and Mary Neff were killed. For four days they travelled through the dark forest toward the northwest. The Indians gave them little to eat. The third ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Ohio, by recalling the British force to its upper posts, may yet give time to Dearborn to strike a blow below. Effectual possession of the river from Montreal to the Chaudiere, which is practicable, would give us the upper country at our leisure, and close for ever the scenes of the tomahawk and scalping-knife. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... him he sure did a good job," Cousin muttered. "He sure did make tomahawk improvements ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter

... first on board, cheering his men as he darted into the closed ranks of his opponents. Whether it was that he did not think that his head was worth defending, or that he was too busy in breaking the heads of others to look after his own; this is certain, that a tomahawk descended upon it with such force as to bury itself in his skull (and his was a thick skull, too). The privateer's men were overpowered by numbers, and then our hero was discovered, under a pile of bodies, still breathing heavily. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... takes his portrait with him when he makes an engagement, for the illustration of the playbill. His portrait (which is not at all like him) represents him in the act of dragging to the earth a recreant Indian, who is supposed to have tomahawked, or essayed to tomahawk, a British officer. The design is pure poetry, for there is no such Indian in the piece, and no such incident. He is a dog of the Newfoundland breed, for whose honesty I would be bail to any amount; but whose intellectual qualities in association with dramatic fiction I cannot rate high. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... North American Indian. He is never interested in anything, never surprised at anything. He has by nature that calmness and indifference which your people of culture have acquired. If he should go into literature as a critic, he would scalp and tomahawk with the same emotionless composure, and he would ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... these ideas were passing through me like lightning, this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New Zealand head —a ghastly thing enough —and crammed it down into the bag. He now took off his hat —a new beaver hat ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... corn for savages. Pardon me, madam, but I am not a sheep, nor yet quite a savage with a tomahawk. Thank you, but I don't care for ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin

... was ahead o' the rest an' had his tomahawk raised to brain me with it when—bing!—an' 'Mord' fetches him down like he did the fellow that was goin' to skelp Father. That made the others mad an' they took after me, but 'Mord' he drops the head one jist when he's goin' to hit me. But all I knowed at the time was that them red devils ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... husband would stand this severe test, and many were astonished when they heard it was her intention to accompany him to the land of the Everglades, where so many had lost their lives, and where the prevailing fever or the deadly tomahawk might leave her alone among strangers. A few days before they left we visited them in the old Newport barracks, and I said to her: "Lizzie; remember you are a soldier's wife, and must not give way to fear." Never can I forget ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve

... incident that 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 ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... of War, I had a strict eye to them, and will add but one word—BEWARE OF A 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 ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush

... wasteful courage of the disciplined English soldier. Till the white men studied war from them they were always beaten in their fights with the red men, and it was hardly the fault of the Indians if the pioneers learned from them to be savages: to kill women and children as well as armed men, to tomahawk and scalp the wounded, to butcher helpless prisoners. But this befell, and it is this which makes many of the stories of Ohio so bloody. We must know their hideous facts fully if we would know them truly, or if we would realize the life that ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... terrible figure, clad in yellow oilskins many sizes too big for him, with ferocious mustaches curling up to his eyes. His belt contained a perfect armory of weapons; item, a pistol that had lost its barrel; item, three wooden daggers, assorted sizes; item, one tomahawk, home-made. The mate was scarcely less terrifying, for though a blue petticoat showed beneath his oilskin jacket, and curls flowed from under his sou'wester, he made up for it by a mass of oakum beard and whisker ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards

... guise, And Specht and Breyman, prompt for action, rise; His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads, Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds, Shuns open combat, teaches where to run, Skulk, couch the ambush, aim the hunter's gun, Whirl the sly tomahawk, the war whoop sing, Divide the spoils and pack ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... more said the priest, "drive them out, drive them out, vive le roi quand meme!" and as he spoke, he brandished the crucifix over his head like a tomahawk; the sacred symbol was covered with gore, which appeared to have come from the head of some ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... (but this is entre nous only, and pray let it be so, or my maternal persecutor will be throwing her tomahawk at any of my curious projects,) I am going to sea for four or five months, with my cousin Capt. Bettesworth, who commands the Tartar, the finest frigate in the navy. I have seen most scenes, and wish to look at a naval life. We are going ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... children fished, hunted, played, fought, and gamboled in mimic 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 ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert

... AND STOUGHTON) one may say, in the first place, that it is fortunately unnecessary as well as unusual for the bulk of them to live in the scalp and tomahawk atmosphere that distinguishes the sexual and social rivalry of Christine Fennimer and Nancy Almar, the two beautiful American Society dames whose duel for the affections of the eligible hero form the plot, the whole plot ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various

... before me, with his black hair gathered back and tied up so that a few eagle feathers were stuck through it; a necklace or two was about his neck and hanging down upon his breast; a pair of fringed buckskin leggings covered his legs; and he carried a tomahawk in one hand, and a bow ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... 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 ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... stood with head erect, steady as one of the pines in the calm of a June morning, watching the result; while the savage gave the yell that has become historical for its appalling influence, leaped through the bushes, and came bounding across the open ground, flourishing a tomahawk. Still Deerslayer moved not, but stood with his unloaded rifle fallen against his shoulders, while, with a hunter's habits, his hands were mechanically feeling for the powder-horn and charger. When about forty feet from his enemy, the savage hurled ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... is it that they lift their empty hands for vengeance—that they leave their bare, icy huts, and warm their frozen veins with ghost-dances, haply practisin' them before they go to be ghosts in reality? What wonder that they sharpen up their ancestral tomahawk, and lift it against their oppressors? What wonder that the smothered fires do break out into sudden fiery tempests of destruction that ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... 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 of Air and Water, at which ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman

... and Jem looked 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 pain ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... 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

... 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

... native convert baptized by the American missionary, who came about two years after to a station some few miles distant from Sullivan's cottage. After a lengthened course of instruction and trial the warrior, who once had wielded the tomahawk in mortal strife against both whites and redskins, went forth, armed with a far different weapon, "even the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God," to make known to his heathen countrymen "the glad tidings of great joy," ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... know what London is, even now in the midst of this war, with its inability to be surprised, and its indifference to strange things. You might walk down Regent Street dressed up as a Cherokee Indian, feathers and tomahawk and all, and how many Cockneys would take the trouble to turn round and look at you twice? It was pretty easy for Escobar ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... eyes of a hunting ferret his own eyes swept quickly about the room. At the four windows there were long curtain cords. On the walls, hung there as trophies, were a number of weapons. On one end of Kedsty's desk, used as a paperweight, was a stone tomahawk. Still nearer to the dead man's hands, unhidden by papers, was a boot-lace. Under his limp right hand was the automatic. With these possible instruments of death close at hand, ready to be snatched up without trouble or waste of time, why had the ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood

... 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 new settlement ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.

... many particulars they bear a decided resemblance to the negroes of Guinea. In regard to dress their habits are certainly primitive. A single ratskin often forms the entire wardrobe of a native chief, and a tomahawk with a brace of spears pointed with iron-wood or flint his adornments. Opossum-skins tied together form a sort of cloak used as a protection against the cold, but if on the chase the wearer finds his upper garment oppressively ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... when large eyes are required). Make use of your paint-box for mouth, 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

... ax, is as follows: Cross the arms and slide the edge of the right hand, held vertically, down over the left arm. (Wied.) This is still employed, at least for a small hatchet, or "dress tomahawk," and would be unintelligible without special knowledge. The essential point is laying the extended right hand in the bend of the left elbow. The sliding down over the left arm is an almost unavoidable but quite unnecessary ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... the moment that their enemies fled; and there was a deep silence, while every eye was fixed on the striking figure of the enraged Chief, whose every feature was distorted by excited passions. He stood with his tomahawk uplifted, and his tall and muscular figure in an attitude of command and defiance; while, in a loud and distinct voice, he uttered a vow of vengeance, the words of which were unintelligible to the ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... moment he fell beneath the tomahawk of the Boy Chief, and within the next quarter of an hour the United States army was dispersed. Thus ended the battle of ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... 1738 to take charge of his uncle's property in the Mohawk valley. He settled about twenty miles west of Schenectady, and engaged in the Indian trade. He dealt honestly with the Indians, learned their language, attended their feasts, and, tomahawk in hand, danced their dances in Indian dress. He even took as his wife a sister of Brant, a Mohawk chief. So great was his influence with the Indians that in 1746 he was made Commissary of New York for Indian Affairs. In 1750 he was made a member of the provincial Council, went ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... however large, would fulfil 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 ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... offered a boundless field for the realization of such dreams, and the spice of adventure could be had for the seeking. Here was the forest primeval in its original grandeur. Here the Indian roamed undisputed master; not the tutored Huron of Voltaire's tale, but the savage of torch and tomahawk. The continent was as yet unexplored. In uncertainty as to motives for man's action the French magistrate always searches for the woman,—"cherchez la femme!" One single allusion in a letter written to Badollet, in 1783, shows that there was a woman ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens

... 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 ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock

... 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

... natives, to whom Mr. Oxley had given a tomahawk, discovered the broad arrow, with which it was marked on both sides, and which exactly resembles the print made by the foot of an emu. Probably the youths thought it a kobong, for they frequently pointed ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... women on the other; and among those men were 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

... my studies with the good fathers: the other portion of my education was wholly Indian. I was put under the charge of a celebrated old warrior of the tribe, and from him I learned the use of the bow, the tomahawk, and the rifle, to throw the lasso, to manage the wildest horse, to break in the untamed colt; and occasionally I was permitted to accompany them in their ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... the Indians—acts with intrepidity—rescues the American prisoners from the tomahawk and scalping knife, after Dudley's defeat—reported agreement between Proctor and Tecumseh, that general Harrison, if taken prisoner, should be delivered to ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... Guiana), 'canoo', 'chocolate', 'cocoa'{11}, 'condor', 'hamoc' ('hamaca' in Ralegh), 'jalap', 'lama', 'maize' (Haytian), 'pampas', 'pemmican', 'potato' ('batata' in our earlier voyagers), 'raccoon', 'sachem', 'squaw', 'tobacco', 'tomahawk', 'tomata' (Mexican), 'wigwam'. If 'hurricane' is a word which Europe originally obtained from the Caribbean islanders{12}, it should of course be included in this list{13}. A certain number of words also we have received, one by one, from various languages, which sometimes ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... 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 getting ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... ago he had killed with his tomahawk one of two bushrangers who were trying to pick up Yarrahappini in the absence of his master, and he had carried little trembling Mrs. Hassal and tiny Esther to place of safety, and gone back and dealt the ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... 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 ...
— 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

... came to see Susan last night for the first time since we had our game; and I wish he had never come back, for he got me into an awful scrape. This was the way it happened. I was playing Indian in the yard. I had a wooden tomahawk and a wooden scalping-knife and a bownarrow. I was dressed up in father's old coat turned inside out, and had six chicken feathers in my hair. I was playing I was Green Thunder, the Delaware chief, and was hunting for pale-faces in the yard. It was just after ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... no other choice," said Tayoga. "We have waited as long as we could to see if Areskoui would turn a favoring face upon us, but his anger holds. It will not avail, if in our endeavor to escape the tomahawk of Tandakora, ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... painful and exhausting performances, which are necessary on his part to enlist favorable notice of the gods. These performances consist chiefly of vapor baths, fastings, chants, prayers, and nightly vigils. The spear and the tomahawk being prepared and consecrated, the person who is to receive them approaches the wakan man (priest), and presents a pipe to him. He asks a favor, in substance as follows: 'Pity thou me, poor and helpless, a woman, and confer on me the ability to perform manly ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir

... 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 and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... I was tied to that tree, I would expect and desire him to have his revenge,—to do to me as I do to him; and I would sing my death-song, as he sings his. Missionary, your rule is Indian rule,—good rule, missionary. Humph!" And he sticks more splinters into his victim, brandishes his tomahawk, and yells. ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.

... it." "It is one of a class of legislative enactments with which we are already becoming familiar, and which, I greatly fear, will ere long grow voluminous. I shall take the liberty to denominate them the scalping-knife and tomahawk laws. They are all urged through by the terror of those instruments of death, under the most affecting and pathetic appeals, from the constituents of the sufferers, to all the tender and benevolent sympathies of our nature. It is impossible for me to withhold from those appeals a ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy



Words linked to "Tomahawk" :   cut, arm, weapon system, kill, weapon



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