The standard penalty for adultery among the Creeks was for the husband to take his unfaithful wife to the forest, tie to her a tree, and kill her with arrows (there was no penalty for adulterous husbands unless the wife was a "warrior woman", in which case the inverse was true). In practice the Creeks were fairly libertine and the penalty was rarely enforced. The following is taken from a white-witnessed incident in a Creek village in Alabama around 1800, where the wife's presumed adultery had political implications within the tribe and the penalty was carried out.
And so it happened that we were with the Creeks when the decision on Yellow Snake's wife was rendered. The council, after some considerable deliberation, had decided that they believed Yellow Snake's brother rather than the woman, and, since the whole affair had stirred up so much trouble in the village, the council sentenced the woman to death. In passionate tones, Yellow Snake stood and spoke on his wife's behalf. He did not, he averred, believe his brother, and besides, the sentence for adultery was usually up to the offended husband, and could vary from complete forgiveness to death. But the chief councilman pointed out that the woman's family was threatening a blood feud once she was vindicated. It was, he said firmly, the council's opinion that only an execution could restore harmony. Still, it fell to Yellow Snake to carry out that sentence. The young warrior looked utterly crestfallen as he heard these words, but he acknowledged his duty and the council's authority in the matter.
Offering our sympathies, we went with him as he left the council ground and returned to his home. It was late afternoon by then, and we found his young wife in front of his home, busily at work preparing the evening meal. Though we knew Yellow Snake well, we hadn't met her before, and we were a little startled at the sight; she was easily the prettiest girl we'd seen during our stay among the Creeks. She appeared to be fifteen or sixteen, very slender, her hair very long and smooth; she looked up as we approached and gave Yellow Snake a brilliant smile, a smile that could've melted any heart. But it was a smile that quickly faded when she saw his drooping shoulders, his mournful face.
"I have been judged guilty, is it not so?" she asked in a soft voice.
"It is so," Yellow Snake answered. "My brother was believed. He said you seduced him."
"He lies," she replied. "As I told you. He came to me, and I rejected him. He holds vengeance in his heart."
"I do believe you. But I was not heeded."
A little timorously, her smile started to return; our hearts were breaking, knowing as we did the rest of it, and wondering what Yellow Snake would do. "And so, my husband," she asked, "what will my sentence be?" It was more than obvious that she expected him to do nothing; clearly, since he said he believed her, he had no reason to.
"The choice was taken from me," he told her. "The council demands your life. And more, they demand that I take it."
Her smile was frozen in place for a moment, but then it disappeared, and her almost child-like face took on a very serious expression. "Then you must," she said finally. "When will you do it, husband?"
"Tomorrow morning." He looked as if he was about to burst out crying. "So I have told your parents, your sisters."
She nodded. "That is well," she said. "We are allowed a final night together." Her features were quite smooth, she seemed serious but undisturbed. She looked up at us. "You are my husband's white friends," she said. "I would that you would eat with us this night, and that you would come with us in the morning. Our honor in this matter should be witnessed."
I answered for us, though I had trouble speaking. I declined the dinner invitation, for which Yellow Snake appeared grateful, but I accepted the offer to witness her death. It seemed the least we could do.
The next morning we arrived at Yellow Snake's house just after dawn. The girl's parents were already there, as were their other daughters; they had, as I understood it, no sons. Their faces were long, but they seemed stolid; no one was weeping.
Then Yellow Snake came out, carrying his bow and arrows, with his wife following. She was dressed in her finest clothes, that was obvious, and she was wearing all her beaded and feathered jewelry. They acknowledged all the rest of us with the slightest of nods before they started walking, hand in hand, toward the woods at the south edge of the village. There was a peculiar contrast between Yellow Snake's attitude and that of his wife; he looked utterly miserable, while she, on the other hand, seemed perfectly calm and unaffected. I was, then, entertaining my suspicions that the council's orders were not, in fact, going to be carried out.
We didn't go very far into the woods. Perhaps a quarter of a mile down the trail was a little clearing with a single tree standing in the middle of it; Yellow Snake stopped there, and the others, ourselves included, waited by the clearing's edge.
The girl turned, held her husband's hands for a moment; then she returned to her parents and sisters, and gave each one a long and affectionate embrace. We were wondering if perhaps she was leaving the village, going away for good. But then she started stripping off her feathered and beaded ornaments and giving them away to her sisters. When they were gone, she took off her clothes and gave them away too; she didn't stop until she was totally nude.
She was utterly unselfconscious about it, even though we could not help staring at her. Her body was even more beautiful than I'd imagined, her skin bronze and satiny, her legs long and muscular but shapely, her breasts high and firm. I could well understand how she'd become a source of conflict between Yellow Snake and his brother.
As we watched, she returned to her husband and held him for a long time. Finally, she pulled away. "As we decided," she told him. "As we decided last night."
"As you decided! I want you to let me...!"
"No. This thing for me, husband."
He sighed. "As you wish it, then. I cannot refuse you."
She nodded, smiled, and turned away, slowly and formally walking the few remaining steps to the lone tree. When she reached it she turned again and leaned against it. Looking down at her stomach, she placed her hands flat over her navel, then slowly moved them apart to reveal it again. Just as slowly, she lifted her head and fixed her eyes on her husband's face. We'd all been watching her; only when she looked towards Yellow Snake did we.
And saw that he'd already nocked an arrow to his bow, that he'd already drawn it, that he was already taking aim at his helpless wife.
Before any of us had a chance to say a word--if there was any word we could've said, if there'd been any way we could've stopped it--he released the string. The arrow shot forward and struck her abdomen with a solid thud!, right at her waistline and just a little to the left of center. She took in her breath sharply and she bent over it slightly, but otherwise she made no sound, none at all. Nor did any of her relatives; they merely watched in silence.
Yellow Snake drew another arrow from his quiver and fitted it to his bowstring, but he didn't even begin to draw until the girl had pulled herself back up straight. She studied the deeply-buried arrow and nodded in apparent satisfaction; then she passed her hand slowly down over her right breast. Yellow Snake drew the string and released it, sending a missile whistling toward her.
Her body jerked as it hit her, but once again she accepted his arrow in silence. Striking right alongside her nipple, it had pierced her breast deeply, and already her blood was rushing out around it, coating the shaft and running freely down her body. She looked down at this one too, her face showing almost no sign of the pain she had to be feeling. A third time she passed her hand over her body, under her ribs on the left this time, and a third time Yellow Snake sent an arrow streaking into the spot she'd marked. Blood erupted again, much more this time than before, but even so, she remained silent and stoic.
For a few seconds she and her husband stood still and watched the blood draining from her wounds. Then she nodded, and he came to her quickly. She put her hands on his shoulders, and sagged against him for a moment, fighting for breath; we were sure she was about to fall.
But with great determination she pulled herself back upright. "Let us go now, husband," she said, her voice weak and thin. "I do not think I can stand much longer."
Without a word, Yellow Snake put his arm around her, supporting her, and they started walking very slowly back toward the village, the rest of us trailing along behind them. As they walked through the streets, people stopped to stare, and many of them joined in behind the slowly-walking couple. But Yellow Snake and his wife did not stop until they'd reached the central square, the ceremonial grounds. There, the wounded girl sat down, crossed her legs, and addressed the gathered tribesmen.
"My husband," she said, forcing her voice, "could not shoot arrows into my body within the village, and he did not." She gestured toward herself, toward the three arrows still protruding from her body. "Yet, as you can all see, he has done as the council ordered. I shall die, but it is here I shall die, so that I can proclaim the injustice that has been done against me!" She turned her face toward Yellow Snake. "Many times, in the past," she said, "the wounded of our tribe have come here and removed enemy arrows from their bodies. I am condemned; no one of our people should lift a hand to remove these arrows from me! And yet there is no reason I should not remove them from my own body. Husband, would you give to me your knife?"
With a tight face, Yellow Snake drew his knife and handed it to her, hilt first. She smiled wanly at him as she took it, and, while the assembled people watched, she turned the point around so that it was touching her own breast, just a little above and inside the arrow that remained there.
Then, with a sure and steady hand, she pushed it into herself. After breaking through the skin, it slid rather easily into the softness of her breast; blood started pouring out from around it as she began dragging it downward alongside the arrow. Amazed, we watched her slice her breast open, even dragging the sharp edge right through the edge of the tender nipple itself.
Finally she pulled the knife free and, grasping the stub of the arrowshaft firmly, worked it back and forth until it came free. Her face still set, she tossed it aside on the ground and almost immediately set the knife's blade against her belly, near the arrow that was piercing her there. Coolly and methodically, taking her time, she pushed it back into herself, keeping a steady pressure on the hilt until it was buried deep in her abdomen.
Nor did she falter even then. Pulling the knife down, she ripped her belly open; ignoring her entrails as they spilled from the wound, she extracted this arrow as well. She was just beginning to force the knife into her side to cut out the last arrow when her strength failed her. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she toppled backwards onto the ground, the knife falling from her nerveless fingers. For just a moment she managed to force her eyes open again, managed to look at her husband again; then she shuddered and died, the third arrow still in place. I could not help it; knowing Yellow Snake could not, I stepped up and ripped the arrow out. I felt she deserved it; never before had I seen such a display of courage and determination from anyone, man or woman.