Of their Arts and Manufactures.
Their Arts and Manufactures are divers, as first their dressing of all manner of Skins, which they do by scraping and rubbing, afterwards painting them with antique Embroiderings in unchangeable Colours; sometimes they take off the Hair, especially if it be not kill’d in season. Their Bowes they make of a handsom shape, strung commonly with the Sinews of Mooses; their Arrows of young Elder, feather’d with Feathers of Eagles Wings and Tails, headed with Brass in shape of a Heart or Triangle, fastned in a slender piece of Wood six or eight Inches long, which is fram’d to put loose in the pithy Elder, afterwards bound fast for riving: Their Arrows are made in this manner, because it might shake from his Head, and be left behind for their finding, and the Pile onely remain to gaul the wounded Beast. Their Cordage is so even, soft, and smooth, that it looks more like Silk than Hemp. Their Sturgeon Nets are not deep, nor above thirty or forty Foot long, which in ebbing low Waters they stake fast to the Ground where they are sure the Sturgeon will come, never looking more at it till the next low Water. Their Canoos are made either of Pine-trees, which before they were acquainted with English Tools, they burn’d hollow, scraping them smooth with Clam-shells and Oyster-shells, cutting their out-sides with Stone Hatchets. These Boats are not above a Foot and a half, or two Foot wide, and twenty Foot long. Their other Canoos be made of thin Birch Rinds, close Ribb’d, and on the in-side with broad thin Hoops, like the Hoops of a Tub; these are made very light, a Man may carry one of them a Mile, being made purposely to carry from River to River, and from Bay to Bay, to shorten Land-passages. In these cockling Fly-boats, wherein an English-man can scarce sit without a fearful tottering, they will venture to Sea, when an English Shallop dare not bear a Knot of Sail, scudding over the over-grown Waves as fast as a wind-driven Ship, being driven by their Paddles, being much like Battle-doors; if a cross Wave (which is seldom) turn her Keel up-side down, they by swimming free her, and scramble into her again.
Of their Language.
Their Language, is onely peculiar to themselves, not inclining to any of the more refined Tongues. Some have thought they might be of the dispersed Jews, because some of their words are near unto the Hebrew; but by the same rule they may conclude them to be some of the gleanings of all Nations, because they have words which sound after the Greek, Latine, French, and other Tongues. Their Language is hard to learn, few of the English being able to speak any of it, or capable of the right pronunciation, which is the chief grace of their Tongue: They pronounce much after the Diphthongs, excluding L and R which in our English Tongue they pronounce with as much difficulty, as most of the Dutch do T and H, calling a Lobster a Nobstann. Every Countrey doth something differ in their Speech, even as our Northern People do from the Southern, and Western from them; especially the Tarrentine, whose Tongue runs so much upon R that they wharle much in pronunciation. When any Ships come near the Shore, they demand whether they are King Charles’s Torries, with such a rumbling sound, as if one were beating on an unbrac’d Drum. In serious Discourse our Southern Indians use seldom any short Colloquies, but speak their minds at large, without any interjected Discourses from any, the rest giving diligent audience to his utterance; which done, some or other returns him as long an Answer: They love not to speak multa, sed multum; seldom are their words and their deeds strangers. According to the matter of their discourse, so are their acting Gestures in their Expressions.
Of their Deaths, Burials and Mourning.
The Indians are of lusty and healthful Bodies, not experimentally knowing those Diseases which are incident to other Countreys, as Feavers, Pleurisies, Calentures, Agues, Consumptions, Convulsions, Apoplexies, Dropsies, Gouts, Pox, Measles, or the like, but spin out the thred of their Days to a fair length, numbering sixty, eighty, some a hundred years: But when any one lies a dying, the doleful cries, and throbbing sighs of the Friends and Relations, express unspeakable sorrow; and when the Party is dead and laid in the Ground, they not onely weep and howl for a good space over the Grave, but also keep Annual Solemnities of Mourning, rubbing their Faces with black Lead all about the Eye-brows, and part of their Cheeks; yet do they hold the Immortality of the Soul, in which their Indian Faith jumps much with the Turkish Alchoran, dreaming of a certain Paradise, or South-West Elysium, wherein they shall everlastingly abide, solacing themselves in odoriferous Gardens, fruitful Corn-fields, green Meadows, bathing their tawny Hides in the cool Streams of pleasant Rivers, and sheltering themselves from Heat and Cold in the sumptuous Palaces fram’d by Nature, concluding, that neither care nor pain shall molest them, but that Natures bounty will administer all things with a voluntary contribution from the Store-house of their Elysium; at the Portal whereof, they say, lies a great Dog, whose churlish snarlings deny admission to unworthy Intruders: wherefore it is their custom to bury with them their Bowes and Arrows, and good store of their Wampompeage and Mowhacks, the one to affright that affronting Cerberus, the other to purchase more immense Prerogatives in their Paradise. For their Enemies and loose Livers, whom they account unworthy of this imaginary Happiness, they say that they pass to the infernal Dwellings of Abamocho, to be tortur’d according to the Fictions of the ancient Heathen.
Dispositions, Employments, Usage by their Husbands, Apparel, and Modesty of the Women.
The drudgery of all laborious sorts of Work, and the management of all domestick Affairs, lies wholly upon the Indian Women, who are made meer Slaves by their Husbands; they build the Houses, sowe and reap the Corn, provide Lobsters for their Husbands to bait their Hooks when they go a Fishing for Basse or Cod; and for these Lobsters they are many times forc’d to dive in the extreamest Weather, then lug home a great weight of them upon their Backs, as also all the Fish which their Husbands catch for pleasure, from the places where they were caught: They dress all the Meat, serve it up to their Husbands, and waiting till they have fill’d their Bellies, are glad of their leavings. In Summer they gather Flags, of which they make Mats for Houses, and Hemp and Rushes, with Dying Stuff, of which they make curious Baskets, with intermixed Colours and Pourtraictures of antique Imagery. These Baskets are of all sizes from a Quart to a Quarter, in which they carry their Luggage. In Winter they are their Husbands Caterers, trudging to the Clam-banks for their Belly-timber, and their Porters to lug it home. They likewise sew their Husbands Shoes, and weave Coats of Turky Feathers, besides all their ordinary Houshold drudgery which daily lies upon them, insomuch that a great Belly hinders no business, nor doth a Child-birth take much time, but the young Infant being greas’d and footed, wrapp’d in a Beavers Skin, bound with his Feet up to his Bum, upon a Board two Foot long and one Foot broad, and his Face expos’d to all nipping Weather, this little Pappouse travels about with his bare-footed Mother to paddle in the Icy Clam-banks, after three or four days of Age have confirm’d her recovery. For their Carriage, it is very civil, Smiles being the greatest grace of their Mirth. Their Musick is Lullabies in Rocking their Children, who generally are as quiet as if they had neither Spleen or Lungs. Their Voices are generally both sweet and well order’d, so far as pure Nature teacheth them. Their Modesty drives them to wear more Clothes than the Men, having always a Coat of Cloth or Skins, wrapp’d like a Blanket about their Loyns, reaching down to their Hams, which they never put off in Company.
Towns built by the English in New England.
There are to be reckon’d up forty five chief Towns, besides what others there may be of less note, built or made habitable by the English since their first arrival in New England, till about the Year 1650.