Other objects, too, of a new and peculiar interest were displayed: there were the 'scalp locks' of five men--'the skin of five men's heads,' says Cartier,--which were spread out on a board like parchments.

The Indians explained that these had been taken from the heads of five of their deadly enemies, the Toudamani, a fierce people living to the south, with whom the natives of Stadacona were perpetually at war.
A gruesome story was also told of a great massacre of a war party of Donnacona's people who had been on their way down to the Gaspe country.
The party, so the story ran, had encamped upon an island near the Saguenay.

They numbered in all two hundred people, women and children being also among the warriors, and were gathered within the shelter of a rude stockade.

In the dead of night their enemies broke upon the sleeping Indians in wild assault; they fired the stockade, and those who did not perish in the flames fell beneath the tomahawk.

Five only escaped to bring the story to Stadacona.