[122] “The most usual custom amongst them in executing punishments, is for the sachim either to beat or whip or put to death with his own hand, to which the common sort most quietly submit; though sometimes the sachim sends a secret executioner, one of his chiefest warriors, to fetch off a head by some sudden, unexpected blow of a hatchet, when they have feared mutiny by public execution.” Roger Williamss Key, ch. xxii. See also [page 15] previous.
[123] “Mosk or paukunawaw, the Great Bear, or Charles’s Wain; which words mosk or paukunawaw signifies a bear; which is so much the more observable, because in most languages that sign or constellation is called the Bear.” Roger Williams’s Key, ch. xii.
[124] “Their powows, by their exorcisms, and necromantic charms, bring to pass strange things, if we may believe the Indians; who report of one Passaconaway, a great sagamore upon Merrimack river, and the most celebrated powow in the country, that he can make the water burn, the rocks move, the trees dance, and metamorphize himself into a flaming man. In winter, when there are no green leaves to be got, he will burn an old one to ashes, and putting these into the water, produce a new green leaf, which you shall not only see, but substantially handle and carry away; and make a dead snake’s skin a living snake, both to be seen, felt, and heard.” Wood’s New England’s Prospect, part ii. ch. 12; Hutchinson’s Mass. i. 474; Morton’s New English Canaan, book i. ch. 9.
[125] “There is a mixture of this language north and south, from the place of my abode, about 600 miles; yet within the 200 miles aforementioned, their dialects do exceedingly differ; yet not so but, within that compass, a man may converse with thousands of natives all over the country.” Roger Williams’s Key, Pref.
“The Indians of the parts of New England, especially upon the sea-coasts, use the same sort of speech and language, only with some difference in the expressions, as they differ in several counties in England, yet so as they can well understand one another.” Gookin, in Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 149.
[Chapter 8] (pp. 67-71)
[126] In September 1609, Hudson ascended the “great river of the mountains,” now called by his name, in a small vessel called the Half-Moon, above the city of Hudson, and sent up a boat beyond Albany. Josselyn says, that Hudson “discovered Mohegan river, in New England.” See Robert Juet’s Journal of Hudson’s third voyage, in Purchas, iii. 593, and in N. Y. Hist. Coll. i. 139, 140, and 2d series, i. 317-332; Moulton’s Hist. of New York, 213, 244-249; Mass. Hist. Coll. xxiii. 372; Belknap’s Am. Biog. i. 400.
[Postscript] (p. 72)
[127] The former of the works here referred to is reprinted in the Mass. Hist. Coll. xix. 1-25; the latter has been reprinted by Applewood Books as Mourt’s Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth.