Women and young children captured in their attacks were taken back as prisoners to the rude encampments of the conquerors, where they afterwards received complete liberty, and became incorporated with the tribe. No quarter, however, was shown to the men of the beaten force. It is said by some of the early European adventurers who came into contact with this fierce race that they were not only wont to scalp their fallen enemies, but that each was accustomed to cut an incision in his own body for every dead foeman whose body lay to the credit of his prowess or cunning. Some doubt, nevertheless, is thrown upon the existence of these habits, although they are affirmed by three rather notable authorities, Barco, Lozano, and Azara. Fortunately for the Spaniards, who discovered in the Charrúas by far the most dreaded enemies that it was their lot to encounter in this part of South America, these Indians were easily turned from a settled purpose or plan of campaign. Thus they would lose many opportunities of pushing home success, halting in an advance in order to celebrate a first victory, and remaining on the ground for the purpose of marking the occasion at length. The fact that these rude savages should have obtained victories over the Spaniards by means of the crude arms that were known to them speaks wonders for their bravery. Their choice of warlike implements was no whit greater than that enjoyed by the lake-dwellers of the Stone Age. Arrows, spears, clubs, and maces--all these were made up of stone heads and wooden shafts. That which might be termed the characteristic native weapon was the _bolas_, the pair of stone balls attached to ostrich sinews or to some other contrivance of the kind. These--as remains the case to the present day in other lands--were employed as slings, and, for the purpose of entangling an enemy, were the most dreaded implements of all. For the purposes of peace as well as for those of war the sole materials available to the Charrúa for the fashioning of implements were stone, wood, bone, and clay. Thus the household equipment was wont to be confined to the most primitive types of knives, saws, punches, hammers, axes, mortars, pestles, and roughly baked pottery. It is certain that they used canoes, since they used to cross over to the islands facing Maldonado, but nothing is known concerning the particular build of these humble craft. Waged under such circumstances existence knew little glamour. Yet even here certain ceremonial institutions obtained. The women, for example, on attaining to adult age were accustomed to tattoo three stripes upon their faces as a signal of the fact, while the men wore a certain kind of headgear to bear a similar significance. On the death of a male, the warrior was buried with his arms, usually on the summit of a small hill. Later, when the luxury of domestic animals became known, the rites grew more elaborate, and the dead man's horse was usually sacrificed on the grave.