They worship the Devil (as I said) their Priests are called Powaws and are little better than Witches, for they have familiar conference with him, who makes them invulnerable, that is shot-free and stick-free. Craftie Rogues, abusing the rest at their pleasure, having power over them by reason of their Diabolical Art in curing of Diseases, which is performed with rude Ceremonies; they place the sick upon the ground sitting, and dance in an Antick manner round about him, beating their naked breasts with a strong hand, and making hideous faces, sometimes calling upon the Devil for his help, mingling their prayers with horrid and barbarous charms; if the sick recover they send rich gifts, their Bowes and Arrowes, Wompompers, Mohacks, Beaver skins, or other rich Furs to the Eastward, where there is a vast Rock not far from the shore, having a hole in it of an unsearchable profundity, into which they throw them.
Their Theologie is not much, but questionless they acknowledge a God and a Devil, and some small light they have of the Souls immortality; for ask them [p. 135.] whither they go when they dye, they will tell you pointing with their finger to Heaven beyond the white mountains, and do hint at Noah’s Floud, as may be conceived by a story they have received from Father to Son, time out of mind, that a great while agon their Countrey was drowned, and all the People and other Creatures in it, only one Powaw and his Webb foreseeing the Floud, fled to the white mountains carrying a hare along with them and so escaped; after a while the Powaw sent the Hare away, who not returning emboldned thereby they descended, and lived many years after, and had many Children, from whom the Countrie was filled again with Indians. Some of them tell another story of the Beaver, saying that he was their Father.
Their learning is very little or none, Poets they are as may be ghessed by their formal speeches, sometimes an hour long, the last word of a line riming with the last word of the following line, and the whole doth Constare ex pedibus. Musical too they be, having many pretty odd barbarous tunes which they make use of vocally at marriages and feastings; but Instruments they had none before the English came amongst them, since they have imitated them and will make out Kitts and string them as neatly, [p. 136.] and as Artificially as the best Fiddle-maker amongst us; and will play our plain lessons very exactly: the only Fidler that was in the Province of Meyn, when I was there, was an Indian called Scozway, whom the Fishermen and planters when they had a mind to be merry made use of.
Arithmetick they skill not, reckoning to ten upon their fingers, and if more doubling of it by holding their fingers up, their age they reckon by Moons, and their actions by sleeps, as, if they go a journie, or are to do any other business they will say, three sleeps me walk, or two or three sleeps me do such a thing, that is in two or three days. Astronomie too they have no knowledge of, seldom or never taking observation of the Stars, Eclipses, or Comets that I could perceive; but they will Prognosticate shrewdly what weather will fall out. They are generally excellent Zenagogues or guides through their Countrie.
Their exercises are hunting and fishing, in both they will take abundance of pains. When the snow will bear them, the young and lustie Indians, (leaving their papouses and old people at home) go forth to hunt Moose, Deere, Bear and Beaver, Thirty or forty miles up into the Countrey; when they light upon a Moose they run him down, [p. 137.] which is sometimes in half a day, sometimes a whole day, but never give him over till they have tyred him, the snow being usually four foot deep, and the Beast very heavie he sinks every step, and as he runs sometimes bears down Arms of Trees that hang in his way, with his horns, as big as a mans thigh; other whiles, if any of their dogs (which are but small) come near, yerking out his heels (for he strikes like a horse) if a small Tree be in the way he breaks it quite asunder with one stroak, at last they get up to him on each side and transpierce him with their Lances, which formerly were no other but a staff of a yard and half pointed with a Fishes bone made sharp at the end, but since they put on pieces of sword-blades which they purchase of the French, and having a strap of leather fastned to the but end of the staff which they bring down to the midst of it, they dart it into his sides, hæret latere lethalis arundo, the poor Creature groans, and walks on heavily, for a space, then sinks and falls down like a ruined building, making the Earth to quake; then presently in come the Victors, who having cut the throat of the slain take off his skin, their young webbs by this time are walking towards them with heavie bags and kettles at their [p. 138.] backs, who laying down their burdens fall to work upon the Carkass, take out the heart, and from that the bone, cut off the left foot behind, draw out the sinews, and cut out his tongue &c. and as much of the Venison as will serve to satiate the hungry mawes of the Company; mean while the men pitch upon a place near some spring, and with their snow shoos shovel the snow away to the bare Earth in a circle, making round about a wall of snow; in the midst they make their Vulcan or fire near to a great Tree, upon the snags whereof they hang their kettles fil’d with the Venison; whilst that boils, the men after they have refresht themselves with a pipe of Tobacco dispose themselves to sleep. The women tend the Cookerie, some of them scrape the slime and fat from the skin, cleanse the sinews, and stretch them and the like, when the venison is boiled the men awake, and opening of their bags take out as much Indian meal as will serve their turns for the present; they eat their broth with spoons, and their flesh they divide into gobbets, eating now and then with it as much meal as they can hold betwixt three fingers; their drink they fetch from the spring, and were not acquainted with other, untill the French and English traded with that cursed liquor [p. 139.] called Rum, Rum-bullion, or kill-Devil, which is stronger than spirit of Wine, and is drawn from the dross of Sugar and Sugar Canes, this they love dearly, and will part with all they have to their bare skins for it, being perpetually drunk with it, as long as it is to be had, it hath killed many of them, especially old women who have dyed when dead drunk. Thus instead of bringing of them to the knowledge of Christianitie, we have taught them to commit the beastly and crying sins of our Nation, for a little profit. When the Indians have stuft their paunches, if it be fair weather and about midday they venture forth again, but if it be foul and far spent, they betake themselves to their field-bed at the sign of the Star, expecting the opening of the Eastern window, which if it promise serenity, they truss up their fardles, and away for another Moose, this course they continue for six weeks or two moneths, making their Webbs their Mules to carry their luggage, they do not trouble themselves with the horns of Moose or other Deer, unless it be near an English plantation; because they are weighty and cumbersome. If the English could procure them to bring them in, they would be worth the pains and charge, being sold in England after the rate of forty or fifty [p. 140.] pounds a Tun; the red heads of Deer are the fairest and fullest of marrow, and lightest; the black heads are heavie and have less marrow; the white are the worst, and the worst nourished. When the Indians are gone, there gathers to the Carkass of the Moose thousands of Mattrises, of which there are but few or none near the Sea-coasts to be seen, these devour the remainder in a quarter of the time that they were hunting of it.
Their fishing followes in the spring, summer and fall of the leaf. First for Lobsters, Clams, Flouke, Lumps or Podles, and Alewives; afterwards for Bass, Cod, Rock, Blew-fish, Salmon, and Lampres, &c.
The Lobsters they take in large Bayes when it is low water, the wind still, going out in their Birchen-Canows with a staff two or three yards long, made small and sharpen’d at one end, and nick’d with deep nicks to take hold. When they spye the Lobster crawling upon the Sand in two fathom water, more or less, they stick him towards the head and bring him up. I have known thirty Lobsters taken by an Indian lad in an hour and a half, thus they take Flouke and Lumps; Clams they dig out of the Clam-banks upon the flats and in creeks when it is low water, where they are bedded [p. 141.] sometimes a yard deep one upon another, the beds a quarter of a mile in length, and less, the Alewives they take with Nets like a pursenet put upon a round hoop’d stick with a handle in fresh ponds where they come to spawn. The Bass and Blew-fish they take in harbours, and at the mouth of barr’d Rivers being in their Canows, striking them with a fisgig, a kind of dart or staff, to the lower end whereof they fasten a sharp jagged bone (since they make them of Iron) with a string fastened to it, as soon as the fish is struck they pull away the staff, leaving the bony head in the fishes body and fasten the other end of the string to the Canow: Thus they will hale after them to shore half a dozen or half a score great fishes: this way they take Sturgeon; and in dark evenings when they are upon the fishing ground near a Bar of Sand (where the Sturgeon feeds upon small fishes (like Eals) that are called Lances sucking them out of the Sands where they lye hid, with their hollow Trunks, for other mouth they have none) the Indian lights a piece of dry Birch-Bark which breaks out into a flame & holds it over the side of his Canow, the Sturgeon seeing this glaring light mounts to the Surface of the water where he is slain and taken with a fisgig. Salmons and Lampres [p. 142.] are catch’d at the falls of Rivers. All the Rivers of note in the Countrey have two or three desperate falls distant one from another for some miles, for it being rising ground from the Sea and mountainous within land, the Rivers having their Originals from great lakes, and hastning to the Sea, in their passage meeting with Rocks that are not so easily worn away, as the loose earthie mould beneath the Rock, makes a fall of the water in some Rivers as high as a house: you would think it strange to see, yea admire if you saw the bold Barbarians in their light Canows rush down the swift and headlong stream with desperate speed, but with excellent dexterity, guiding his Canow that seldom or never it shoots under water, or overturns, if it do they can swim naturally, striking their pawes under their throat like a dog, and not spreading their Arms as we do; they turn their Canow again and go into it in the water.
Their Merchandize are their beads, which are their money, of these there are two sorts blew Beads and white Beads, the first is their Gold, the last their Silver, these they work out of certain shells so cunningly that neither Jew nor Devil can counterfeit, they dril them and string them, and make many curious works with them to [p. 143.] adorn the persons of their Sagamours and principal men and young women, as Belts, Girdles, Tablets, Borders for their womens hair, Bracelets, Necklaces, and links to hang in their ears. Prince Phillip a little before I came for England coming to Boston had a Coat on and Buskins set thick with these Beads in pleasant wild works and a broad Belt of the same, his Accoutrements were valued at Twenty pounds. The English Merchant giveth them ten shillings a fathom for their white, and as much more or near upon for their blew Beads. Delicate sweet dishes too they make of Birch-Bark sowed with threads drawn from Spruse or white Cedar-Roots, and garnished on the out-side with flourisht works, and on the brims with glistering quills taken from the Porcupine, and dyed, some black, others red, the white are natural, these they make of all sizes from a dram cup to a dish containing a pottle, likewise Buckets to carry water or the like, large Boxes too of the same materials, dishes, spoons and trayes wrought very smooth and neatly out of the knots of wood, baskets, bags, and matts woven with Sparke, bark of the Line-Tree and Rushes of several kinds, dyed as before, some black, blew, red, yellow, bags of Porcupine quills woven and dyed also; Coats woven of [p. 144.] Turkie-feathers for their Children, Tobacco pipes of stone with Imagerie upon them, Kettles of Birchen-bark which they used before they traded with the French for Copper Kettles, by all which you may apparently see that necessity was at first the mother of all inventions. The women are the workers of most of these, and are now, here and there one excellent needle woman, and will milk a Cow neatly, their richest trade are Furs of divers sorts, Black Fox, Beaver, Otter, Bear, Sables, Mattrices, Fox, Wild-Cat, Rattoons, Martins, Musquash, Moose-skins.
Ships they have none, but do prettily imitate ours in their Birchen-pinnaces, their Canows are made of Birch, they shape them with flat Ribbs of white Cedar, and cover them with large sheets of Birch-bark, sowing them through with strong threds of Spruse-Roots or white Cedar, and pitch them with a mixture of Turpentine and the hard rosen that is dryed with the Air on the out-side of the Bark of Firr-Trees. These will carry half a dozen or three or four men and a considerable fraight, in these they swim to Sea twenty, nay forty miles, keeping from the shore a league or two, sometimes to shorten their voyage when they are to double a Cape they will put to shore, and [p. 145.] two of them taking up the Canow carry it cross the Cape or neck of land to the other side, and to Sea again; they will indure an incredible great Sea, mounting upon the working billowes like a piece of Corke; but they require skilful hands to guide them in rough weather, none but the Indians scarce dare to undertake it, such like Vessels the Ancient Brittains used, as Lucan relates.
Primum cana salix, madefacto vimine, parvam