The History of Virginia Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lith. of Ritchies & Dunnavant Richmond, Va._ Tab: 1. Book 2. Pag: 120]

TAB. I. Represents the Indians in a canoe with a fire in the middle, attended by a boy and a girl. In one end is a net made of silk gra.s.s, which they use in fis.h.i.+ng their weirs. Above is the shape of their weirs, and the manner of setting a weir wedge across the mouth of a creek.

NOTE. That in fis.h.i.+ng their weirs they lay the side of the canoe to the cods of the weir, for the more convenient coming at them, and not with the end going into the cods, as is set down in the print: but we could not otherwise represent it here, lest we should have confounded the shape of the weir with the canoe.

In the air you see a fis.h.i.+ng hawk flying away with a fish, and a bald eagle pursuing to take it from him; the bald eagle has always his head and tail white, and they carry such a l.u.s.tre with them that the white thereof may be discerned as far as you can see the shape of the bird, and seems as if it were without feathers, and thence it has its name bald eagle.

-- 24. 'Tis a good diversion to observe, the manner of the fis.h.i.+ng-hawk's preying upon fish, which may be seen every fair day all the summer long, and especially in a morning. At the first coming of the fish in the spring, these birds of prey are surprisingly eager. I believe, in the dead of winter, they fish farther off at sea, or remain among the craggy uninhabited islands upon the sea coast. I have often been pleasantly entertained by seeing these hawks take the fish out of the water, and as they were flying away with their quarry, the bald eagles take it from them again. I have often observed the first of these hover over the water and rest upon the wing some minutes together, without the least change of place, and then from a vast height dart directly into the water, and there plunge down for the s.p.a.ce of half a minute or more, and at last bring up with him a fish which he could hardly rise with; then, having got upon the wing again, he would shake himself so powerfully that he threw the water like a mist about him; afterwards away he'd fly to the woods with his game, if he were not overlooked by the bald eagle and robbed by the way, which very frequently happens. For the bald eagle no sooner perceives a hawk that has taken his prey but he immediately pursues and strives to get above him in the air, which if he can once attain, the hawk for fear of being torn by him, lets the fish drop, and so by the loss of his dinner compounds for his own safety. The poor fish is no sooner loosed from the hawk's talons, but the eagle shoots himself with wonderful swiftness after it, and catches it in the air, leaving all further pursuit of the hawk, which has no other remedy but to go and fish for another.

Walking once with a gentleman in an orchard by the river side, early in the spring, before the fish were by us perceived to appear in shoal water or near the sh.o.r.es, and before any had been caught by the people, we heard a great noise in the air just over our heads, and looking up we saw an eagle in close pursuit of a hawk that had a great fish in his pounces. The hawk was as low as the apple trees before he would let go his fish, thinking to recover the wood which was just by, where the eagles dare never follow, for fear of bruising themselves. But, notwithstanding the fish was dropped so low, and though it did not fall above thirty yards from us, yet we with our hollowing, running and casting up our hats, could hardly save the fish from the eagle, and if it had been let go two yards higher he would have got it: but we at last took possession of it alive, carried it home, and had it dressed forthwith. It served five of us very plentifully for a breakfast, and some to the servants. This fish was a rock near two feet long, very fat, and a great rarity for the time of year, as well as for the manner of its being taken.

These fis.h.i.+ng hawks, in more plentiful seasons, will catch a fish and loiter about with it in the air, on purpose to have chase with an eagle; and when he does not appear soon enough the hawk will make a saucy noise, and insolently defy him. This has been frequently seen by persons who have observed their fis.h.i.+ngs.

CHAPTER VI.

OF WILD FOWL AND HUNTED GAME.

-- 25. As in summer, the rivers and creeks are filled with fish, so in winter they are in many places covered with fowl. There are such a mult.i.tude of swans, geese, brants, sheldrakes, ducks of several sorts, mallard, teal, blewings, and many other kinds of water fowl, that the plenty of them is incredible. I am but a small sportsman, yet with a fowling piece have killed above twenty of them at a shot. In like manner are the mill ponds and great runs in the woods stored with these wild fowl at certain seasons of the year.

-- 26. The sh.o.r.es, marshy grounds, swamps and savannahs are also stored with the like plenty of other game of all sorts, as cranes, curlews, herons, snipes, woodc.o.c.ks, saurers, ox-eyes, plovers, larks, and many other good birds for the table that they have not yet found a name for.

Not to mention beavers, otters, musk rats, minxes, and an infinite number of other wild creatures.

-- 27. Although the inner lands want these benefits, (which, however, no pond or plash is without,) yet even they have the advantage of wild turkeys, of an incredible bigness, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, and an infinity of small birds, as well as deer, hares, foxes, racc.o.o.ns, squirrels, opossums. And upon the frontier plantations, they meet with bears, panthers, wild cats, elks, buffaloes and wild hogs, which yield pleasure as well as profit to the sportsman. And though some of these names may seem frightful to the English, who hear not of them in their own country, yet they are not so there, for all these creatures ever fly from the face of man, doing no damage but to the cattle and hogs, which the Indians never troubled themselves about.

Here I cannot omit a strange rarity in the female opossum, which I myself have seen. They have a false belly, or loose skin quite over the belly; this never sticks to the flesh of the belly, but may be looked into at all times, after they have been concerned in procreation. In the hinderpart of this is an aperture big enough for a small hand to pa.s.s into: hither the young ones, after they are full haired, and strong enough to run about, do fly whenever any danger appears, or when they go to rest or suck. This they continue till they have learned to live without the dam: but what is yet stranger, the young ones are bred in this false belly without ever being within the true one. They are formed at the teat, and there they grow for several weeks together into perfect shape, becoming visibly larger, till at last they get strength, sight and hair; and then they drop off and rest in this false belly, going in and out at pleasure. I have observed them thus fastened at the teat from the bigness of a fly until they become as large as a mouse. Neither is it any hurt to the old one to open this budget and look in upon her young.

-- 28. The Indians had no other way of taking their water or land fowl, but by the help of bows and arrows. Yet so great was their plenty, that with this weapon only they killed what numbers they pleased. And when the water fowl kept far from sh.o.r.e (as in warmer weather they sometimes did) they took their canoes and paddled after them.

But they had a better way of killing the elks, buffaloes, deer, and greater game, by a method which we call fire hunting: that is, a company of them would go together back into the woods any time in the winter, when the leaves were falling and so dry that they would burn; and being come to the place designed, they would fire the woods in a circle of five or six miles compa.s.s; and when they had completed the first round they retreated inward, each at his due distance, and put fire to the leaves and gra.s.s afresh, to accelerate the work, which ought to be finished with the day. This they repeat till the circle be so contracted that they can see their game herded all together in the middle, panting and almost stifled with heat and smoke; for the poor creatures being frightened at the flame keep running continually round, thinking to run from it, and dare not pa.s.s through the fire; by which means they are brought at last into a very narrow compa.s.s. Then the Indians retreat into the centre, and let fly their arrows at them as they pa.s.s round within the circle; by this means, though they stand often quite clouded in smoke, they rarely shoot each other. By this means they destroy all the beasts collected within that circle. They make all this slaughter chiefly for the sake of the skins, leaving most of the carca.s.ses to perish in the woods.

Father Verbiast, in his description of the Emperor of China's voyage into the Eastern Tartary, Anno 1682, gives an account of a way of hunting the Tartars have, not much unlike this; only whereas the Indians surround their game with fire, the Tartars do it with a great body of armed men, who having environed the ground they design to drive, march equally inwards, which, still as the ring lessens, brings the men nearer each other, till at length the wild beasts are encompa.s.sed with a living wall.

The Indians have many pretty inventions to discover and come up to the deer, turkeys and other game undiscerned; but that being an art known to very few English there, I will not be so accessary to the destruction of their game as to make it public. I shall therefore only tell you, that when they go a hunting into the outlands, they commonly go out for the whole season with their wives and family. At the place where they find the most game they build up a convenient number of small cabins, wherein they live during that season. These cabins are both begun and finished in two or three days, and after the season is over they make no farther account of them.

-- 29. This, and a great deal more, was the natural production of that country, which the native Indians enjoyed, without the curse of industry, their diversion alone, and not their labor, supplying their necessities. The women and children indeed were so far provident as to lay up some of the nuts and fruits of the earth in their season for their farther occasions: but none of the toils of husbandry were exercised by this happy people, except the bare planting a little corn and melons, which took up only a few days in the summer, the rest being wholly spent in the pursuit of their pleasures. And indeed all that the English have done since their going thither has been only to make some of these native pleasures more scarce, by an inordinate and unseasonable use of them; hardly making improvements equivalent to that damage.

I shall in the next book give an account of the Indians themselves, their religion, laws and customs; that so both the country and its primitive inhabitants may be considered together in that original state of nature in which the English found them. Afterwards I will treat of the present state of the English there, and the alterations, I can't call them improvements, they have made at this day.

BOOK III.

OF THE INDIANS, THEIR RELIGION, LAWS AND CUSTOMS, IN WAR AND PEACE.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE INDIANS AND THEIR DRESS.

-- 1. The Indians are of the middling and largest stature of the English.

They are straight and well proportioned, having the cleanest and most exact limbs in the world. They are so perfect in their outward frame, that I never heard of one single Indian that was either dwarfish, crooked, bandy-legged, or otherwise misshapen. But if they have any such practice among them as the Romans had, of exposing such children till they died, as were weak and misshapen at their birth, they are very shy of confessing it, and I could never yet learn that they had.

Their color, when they are grown up, is a chestnut brown and tawny; but much clearer in their infancy. Their skin comes afterwards to harden and grow blacker by greasing and sunning themselves. They have generally coal black hair, and very black eyes, which are most commonly graced with that sort of squint which many of the Jews are observed to have.

Their women are generally beautiful, possessing shape and features agreeable enough, and wanting no charm but that of education and a fair complexion.

-- 2. The men wear their hair cut after several fanciful fas.h.i.+ons, sometimes greased, and sometimes painted. The great men, or better sort, preserve a long lock behind for distinction. They pull their beards up by the roots with musselsh.e.l.ls, and both men and women do the same by the other parts of their body for cleanliness sake. The women wear the hair of the head very long, either hanging at their backs, or brought before in a single lock, bound up with a fillet of peak, or beads; sometimes also they wear it neatly tied up in a knot behind. It is commonly greased, and s.h.i.+ning black, but never painted.

The people of condition, of both s.e.xes, wear a sort of coronet on their heads, from four to six inches broad, open at the top, and composed of peak, or beads, or else of both interwoven together, and worked into figures, made by a nice mixture of the colors. Sometimes they wear a wreath of died furs, as likewise bracelets on their necks and arms. The common people go bare-headed, only sticking large s.h.i.+ning feathers about their heads, as their fancies lead them.

-- 3. Their clothes are a large mantle, carelessly wrapped about their bodies, and sometimes girt close in the middle with a girdle. The upper part of this mantle is drawn close upon the shoulders, and the other hangs below their knees. When that's thrown off, they have only for modesty sake a piece of cloth, or a small skin tied round their waist, which reaches down to the middle of the thigh. The common sort tie only a string round their middle, and pa.s.s a piece of cloth or skin round between their thighs, which they turn at each end over the string.

Their shoes, when they wear any, are made of an entire piece of buckskin, except when they sew a piece to the bottom to thicken the sole. They are fastened on with running strings, the skin being drawn together like a purse on the top of the foot, and tied round the ankle.

The Indian name of this kind of shoe is moccasin.

But because a draught of these things will inform the reader more at first view than a description in many words, I shall present him with the following prints drawn by the life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lith. of Ritchies & Dunnavant Richmond, Va._ Tab: 2 Book: 3 Pag 129]

TAB. II. is an Indian man in his summer dress. The upper part of his hair is cut short to make a ridge, which stands up like the comb of a c.o.c.k, the rest is either shorn off, or knotted behind his ear. On his head are stuck three feathers of the wild turkey, pheasant, hawk, or such like. At his ear is hung a fine sh.e.l.l with pearl drops. At his breast is a tablet, or fine sh.e.l.l, smooth as polished marble, which sometimes also hath etched on it a star, half moon, or other figure, according to the maker's fancy. Upon his neck and wrists hang strings of beads, peak and roenoke. His ap.r.o.n is made of a deer skin, gashed round the edges, which hang like ta.s.sels or fringe; at the upper end of the fringe is an edging of peak, to make it finer. His quiver is of a thin bark; but sometimes they make it of the skin of a fox, or young wolf, with the head hanging to it, which has a wild sort of terror in it; and to make it yet more warlike, they tie it on with the tail of a panther, buffalo, or such like, letting the end hang down between their legs. The p.r.i.c.ked lines on his shoulders, breast and legs, represent the figures painted thereon. In his left hand he holds a bow, and in his right an arrow. The mark upon his shoulderblade is a distinction used by the Indians in traveling, to show the nation they are of; and perhaps is the same with that which Baron Lahontan calls the arms and heraldry of the Indians. Thus the several lettered marks are used by several other nations about Virginia, when they make a journey to their friends and allies.

The landscape is a natural representation of an Indian field.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lith. of Ritchie & Dunnavant Richmond._ Fig. 2 Fig. 1 Tab. 3 Book 3 Pag. 129]

TAB. III is two Indian men in their winter dress. Seldom any but the elder people wore the winter cloaks (which they call match-coats) till they got a supply of European goods; and now most have them of one sort or other in the cold winter weather. Fig. 1 wears the proper Indian match-coat, which is made of skins, dressed with the fur on, sewed together, and worn with the fur inwards, having the edges also gashed for beauty sake. On his feet are moccasins. By him stand some Indian cabins on the banks of the river. Fig. 2 wears the Duffield match-coat bought of the English; on his head is a coronet of peak, on his legs are stockings made of Duffields: that is, they take a length to reach from the ankle to the knee, so broad as to wrap round the leg; this they sew together, letting the edges stand out at an inch beyond the seam. When this is on, they garter below knee, and fasten the lower end in the moccasin.

-- 4. I don't find that the Indians have any other distinction in their dress, or the fas.h.i.+on of their hair, than only what a greater degree of riches enables them to make, except it be their religious persons, who are known by the particular cut of the hair and the unusual figure of their garments; as our clergy are distinguished by their canonical habit.

The habit of the Indian priest is a cloak made in the form of a woman's petticoat; but instead of tieing it about their middle, they fasten the gatherings about their neck and tie it upon the right shoulder, always keeping one arm out to use upon occasion. This cloak hangs even at the bottom, but reaches no lower than the middle of the thigh; but what is most particular in it is, that it is constantly made of a skin dressed soft, with the pelt or fur on the outside, and reversed; insomuch, that when the cloak has been a little worn the hair falls down in flakes, and looks very s.h.a.gged and frightful.

The cut of their hair is likewise peculiar to their function; for 'tis all shaven close except a thin crest, like a c.o.c.k's comb, which stands bristling up, and runs in a semicircle from the forehead up along the crown to the nape of the neck. They likewise have a border of hair over the forehead, which by its own natural strength, and by the stiffening it receives from grease and paint, will stand out like the peak of a bonnet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Lith. of Ritchie & Dunnavant Richmond._ a Huskanaw pen.

3 Fig 2 a Priest a Conjurer Fig. 1 Tab 4 Book 3 Pag 131]

TAB. IV. Is a priest and a conjurer in their proper habits. The priest's habit is sufficiently described above. The conjurer shaves all his hair off, except the crest on the crown; upon his ear he wears the skin of some dark colored bird; he, as well as the priest, is commonly grimed with soot or the like; to save his modesty he hangs an otter skin at his girdle, fastening the tail between his legs; upon his thigh hangs his pocket, which is fastened by tucking it under his girdle, the bottom of this is likewise fringed with ta.s.sels for ornament sake. In the middle between them is the Huskanawpen spoken of -- 32.

-- 5. The dress of the women is little different from that of the men, except in the tieing of their hair. The women of distinction wear deep necklaces, pendants and bracelets, made of small cylinders of the conch sh.e.l.l, which they call peak: they likewise keep their skin clean and s.h.i.+ning with oil, while the men are commonly bedaubed all over with paint.

They are remarkable for having small round b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and so firm, that they are hardly ever observed to hang down, even in old women. They commonly go naked as far as the navel downward, and upward to the middle of the thigh, by which means they have the advantage of discovering their fine limbs and complete shape.