Chapter 1As for their persons they are tall and handsome timber'd people, out-wristed, pale and lean Tartarian visag'd, black eyed which is accounted the strongest for fight, and generally black hair'd, both smooth and curl'd wearing of it long. No beards, or very rarely, their Teeth are very white, short and even, they account them the most necessary and best parts of man; And as the Austreans are known by their great lips, the Bavarians by their pokes under their chins, the Jews by their goggle eyes, for the Indians by their flat noses, yet are they not so much deprest as they are to the Southward.
The Indesses that are young, are some of them very comely, having good features, their faces plump and round, and generally plump of their Bodies, as are the men likewise, and as soft and smooth as a mole-skin, of reasonable good complexions, but that they dye themselves tawnie, many prettie Brownetto's and spider finger'd Lasses may be seen amongst them. The Vetula's or old women are lean and uglie, all of them are of a modest demeanor, considering their Savage breeding; and indeed do shame our English rusticks whose rudeness in many things exceedeth theirs.
Of dispositlon very inconstant, crafty, timorous, quick of apprehension, and very ingenious, soon angry, and so malicious that they seldom forget an injury, and barbarously cruel, witness their direful revenges upon one another. Prone to injurious violence and slaughter, by reason of their bloud dryed up with overmuch fire, very lecherous proceeding from choller adust and melancholy, a salt and sharp humour; very fingurative or theevish, and bold importunate beggars, both Men and Women guilty of Misoxenie or hatred to strangers, a quality appropriated to the old Brittains, all of them Cannibals, eaters of humane flesh. And so were formerly the Heathen-Irish who used to feed upon the Buttocks of Boyes and Womens Paps; it seems it is natural to Savage people so to do. I have read in Relations of the Indians amongst the Spaniards that they would not eat a Spaniard till they had kept him two or three dayes to wax tender, because their flesh was hard. At Martins vinyard, an Island that lyes South to Plimouth in the way to Virginia, certain Indians (whilst I was in the Countrey) seised upon a Boat that put into a By-Cove, kill'd the men and eat them up in a short time before they were discovered.
Their houses which they call Wigwams, are built with Poles pitcht into the ground of a round form for most part, sometimes square, they bind down the tops of their poles, leaving a hole for smoak to go out at, the rest they cover with the bark of Trees, and line the inside of their Wigwams with mats made of Rushes painted with several colours, one good post they set up in the middle that reaches to the hole in the top, with a staff across before it at a convenient height, they knock in a pin on which they hang their Kettle, beneath that they set up a broad stone for a back which keepeth the post from burning; round by the walls they spread their mats and skins where the men sleep whilst their women dress their victuals, they have commonly two doors, one opening to the South, the other to the North, and according as the wind sits, they close up one door with bark and hang a Dears skin or the like before the other. Towns they have none, being alwayes removing from one place to another for conveniency of food, sometimes to those places where one sort of fish is most plentiful, other whiles where others are. I have seen half a hundred of their Wigwams together in a piece of ground and they shew prettily, within a day or two, or a week they have been all dispersed. They live for the most part by the Sea-side, especially in the spring and summer quarters, in winter they are gone up into the Countrie to hunt Deer and Beaver, the younger webbs going with them. Tame Cattle they have none, excepting Lice, and Doggs of a wild breed that they bring up to hunt with.
Wives they have two or three, according to the ability of their bodies and strength of their concupiscence, who have the easiest labours of any women in the world; they will go out when their time is come alone, carrying a board with them two foot long, and a foot and half broad, bor'd full of holes on each side, having a foot beneath like a Jack that we pull Boots off with, on the top of the board a broad strap of leather which they put over their fore-head, the board hanging at their back; when they are come to a Bush or a Tree that they fancy they lay them down and are delivered in a trice, not so much as groaning for it, they wrap the child up in a young Beaver-skin with his heels close to his britch, leaving a little hole if it be a Boy for his Cock to peep out at; and lace him down to the board upon his back, his knees resting upon the foot beneath, then putting the strap of leather upon their fore-head with the infant hanging at their back home they trudge; What other ceremonies they use more than dying of them with a liquor of boiled Hemlock-Bark, and their throwing of them into the water if they suspect the Child to be gotten by any other Nation, to see if he will swim, if he swim they acknowledge him for their own, their names they give them when they are men grown, and covet much to be called after our English manner, Robin, Harry, Phillip and the like, very indulgent they are to their Children, and their children sometimes to their Parents, but if they live so long that they become a burden to them, they will either starve them or bury them alive, as it was supposed an Indian did his Mother at Casco in 1669.
Their Apparel before the English came amongst them, was the skins of wild Beasts with the hair on. Buskins of Deers-skin or Moose drest and drawn with lines into several works, the lines being coloured with yellow, blew or red, Pumps too they have, made of tough skins without soles. In the winter when the snow will bear them, they fasten to their feet their snow shooes which are made like a large Racket we play at Tennis with, lacing them with Deers-guts and the like, under their belly they wear a square piece of leather and the like upon their posteriors, both fastened to a string tyed about them to hide their secrets; on their heads they ware nothing: But since they have had to do with the English they purchase of them a sort of Cloth called trading cloth of which they make Mantles, Coats with short sleeves, and caps for their heads which the women use, but the men continue their old fashion going bare-headed, excepting some old men amongst them. They are very proud as appeareth by their setting themselves out with white and blew Beads of their own making, and painting of their faces with the above mentioned colours, they weave sometimes curious Coats with Turkie feathers for their Children.
Their Diet is Fish and Fowl, Bear, Wild-cat, Rattoon and Deer; dry'd Oysters, Lobsters rosted or dryed in the smoak, Lampres and dry'd Moose-tongues, which they esteem a dish for a Sagamor; hard eggs boiled and made small and dryed to thicken their broth with, salt they have not the use of, nor bread, their Indian Corn and Kidney beans they boil, and sometimes eat their Corn parcht or roasted in the ear against the fire; they feed likewise upon earth-nuts, or ground-nuts, roots of water-Lillies, Ches-nuts, and divers sorts of Berries. They beat their Corn to powder and put it up into bags, which they make use of when stormie weather or the like will not suffer them to look out for their food. Pompions and water-Mellons too they have good store; they have prodigious stomachs, devouring a cruel deal, meer voragoes, never giving over eating as long as they have it, between meals spending their time in sleep till the next kettlefull is boiled, when all is gone they satisfie themselves with a small quantity of the meal, making it serve as the frugal bit amongst the old Britains, which taken to the mountenance of a Bean would satisfie both thirst and hunger. If they have none of this, as sometimes it falleth out (being a very careless people not providing against the storms of want and tempest of necessity) they make use of Sir Francis Drake's remedy for hunger, go to sleep.
They live long, even to an hundred years of age, if they be not cut off by their Children, war, and the plague, which together with the small pox hath taken away abundance of them. Pliny reckons up but 300 Diseases in and about man, latter writers Six thousand, 236 belonging to the eyes. There are not so many Diseases raigning amongst them as our Europeans. The great pox is proper to them, by reason (as some do deem) that they are Man-eaters, which disease was brought amongst our Europeans first by the Spaniards that went with Christopher Columbus who brought it to Naples with their Indian-woman, with whom the Italians and French conversed Anno Dom. 1493. Paracelsus faith it happened in the year 1478 and 1480. But all agree that it was not known in Europe before Columbus his voyage to America. It hath continued amongst us above two hundred and three score years. There are Diseases that are proper to certain climates, as the Leprosie to Ægypt, swelling of the Throat or Mentegra to Asia, the sweating sickness to the Inhabitants of the North; to the Portugals the Phthisick, to Savoy the mumps; So to the West-Indies the Pox, but this doth not exclude other Diseases. In New-England the Indians are afflicted with pestilent Feavers, Plague, Black-pox, Consumption of the Lungs, Falling-sickness. Kings-evil, and a Disease called by the Spaniard the Plague in the back, with us Empyema, their Physicians are the Powaws or Indian Priests who cure some-times by charms and medicine, but in a general infection they seldom come amongst them, therefore they use their own remedies, which is sweating, &c. Their manner is when they have plague or small pox amongst them to cover their Wigwams with Bark so close that no Air can enter in, lining them (as I said before) within, and making a great fire they remain there in a stewing heat till they are in a top sweat, and then run out into the Sea or River, and presently after they are come into their Hutts again they either recover or give up the Ghost; they dye patiently both men and women, not knowing of a Hell to scare them, nor a Conscience to terrifie them. In times of general Mortality they omit the Ceremonies of burying, exposing their dead Carkases to the Beasts of prey. But at other times they dig a Pit and set the diseased therein upon his breech upright, and throwing in the earth, cover it with the sods and bind them down with sticks, driving in two stakes at each end; their mournings are somewhat like the howlings of the Irish, seldom at the grave but in the Wigwam where the party dyed, blaming the Devil for his hard heartedness, and concluding with rude prayers to him to afflict them no further.Source: Overview by Bryan Wright
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