"If you will let us have plenty of drink, like that in the bottle, plenty of rum, you shall be our master," said the Indians. "It is a great deal better than the Good Spirit's corn."
The bargain was soon made between the Evil Spirit and the Narragansetts. The Evil Spirit agreed that his white men should let the Indians have as much rum as the Narragansetts wanted, and they in return were to be his servants. So, from that day to this, the Narragansetts have served the Evil Spirit. They get from the Good Spirit the canoes which enable them to cross rivers and catch fish, and the corn which fills their bellies, but the bows and arrows which lead them to engage in bloody wars, and the rum which makes dogs, and bears, and hogs, and wild cats of them, they get from the Devil and the pale faces. Yet it must be told that neither spirit has exactly kept his word. The Great Spirit sometimes withers the corn by withholding rain from it, or sweeps it away by sending too much; and the Evil Spirit often lets the pale faces drink up all the rum before it reaches the Indians.
NOTES.
(1) Hobbamock—p. 120.
This was the Indian Devil. "Another power they worship, whom they call Hobbamock, and to the northward of us, Hobbamoqui; this, as farre as wee can conceive, is the Devill; him they call upon to cure their wounds and diseases. When they are curable, hee perswades them hee sends the same for some conceiled anger, but, upon their calling upon him, can and doth help them; but, when they are mortall, and not curable in nature, then he perswades them Kiehtan is angry, and sends them diseases whom none can cure; insomuch, as in that respect onely they somewhat doubt whether hee bee simply good, and therefore in sicknesse never call upon him. This Hobbamock appears in sundry formes unto them, as in the shape of a man, a deare, a fawne, an eagle, &c., but most ordinarily at a snake."—Purchas' Pilgrims.
Dr. Jarvis, a shrewd and learned American theologian and writer, observes, "This Hobbamock, or Hobbamoqui, who "appears in sundry forms," is evidently the Oke or Tutelary Deity, which each Indian worships; and Mr. Winslow's narrative affords a solution of the pretended worship of the devil, which the first settlers imagined they had discovered, and which has since been so frequently mentioned on their authority, without examination. The natives, it was found, worshipped another being besides the Great Spirit, which every one called his Hobbamock, or Guardian Oke. This the English thought could be no other than the Devil, and accordingly they asserted, without farther ceremony, what they believed to be a fact."
(2) Conjurors.—p. 121.
Both Charlevoix and Heckewelder have treated of Indian priests, and conjurors, and jugglers, as though they were separate professions, and several late writers have fallen into the same error. Hear Carver:
"The priests of the Indians are at the same time their physicians, and their conjurors; whilst they heal their wounds, or cure their diseases, they interpret their dreams, give them protective charms, and satisfy that desire which is so prevalent among them, of searching into futurity. ***** When any of the people are ill, the person who is invested with this triple character of doctor, priest, and magician, sits by the patient, &c."—Carver, 251, 252.