All the able-bodied men are combatants, and all the women and children constitute the spoils of war in case of defeat.

This fact is important, since the purpose of primitive conflicts is to enslave and pillage, rather than to acquire land.

The result is that a whole district may be laid waste, but when the devastators withdraw, it is gradually repopulated by bordering tribes, who make new ethnic combinations.

After the destruction of the Eries by the Iroquois in 1655, Ohio was left practically uninhabited for a hundred and fifty years.

Then the Iroquoian Wyandots extended their settlements into northwestern Ohio from their base in southern Michigan, while the Miami Confederacy along the southern shore of Lake Michigan pushed their borders into the western part.