They have also another sort which is as current among them, but of far less value; and this is made of the cockle shell, broken into small bits with rough edges, drilled through in the same manner as beads, and this they call roenoke, and use it as the peak.
These sorts of money have their rates set upon them as unalterable, and current as the values of our money are.
The Indians have likewise some pearl amongst them, and formerly had many more, but where they got them is uncertain, except they found them in the oyster banks, which are frequent in this country.
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE HANDICRAFTS OF THE INDIANS.
§ 47. Before I finish my account of the Indians, it will not be amiss to inform you, that when the English went first among them, they had no sort of iron or steel instruments; but their knives were either sharpened reeds or shells, and their axes sharp stones, bound to the end of a stick, and glued in with turpentine. By the help of these, they made their bows of the locust tree, an excessive hard wood when it is dry, but much more easily cut when it is green, of which they always took the advantage. They made their arrows of reeds or small wands, which needed no other cutting, but in the length, being otherwise ready for notching, feathering and heading. They fledged their arrows with turkey feathers, which they fastened with glue made of the velvet horns of a deer; but it has not that quality it's said to have, of holding against all weathers; they arm'd the heads with a white transparent stone, like that of Mexico mentioned by Peter Martyr, of which they have many rocks; they also headed them with the spurs of the wild turkey cock.
They rubbed fire out of particular sorts of wood (as the ancients did out of the ivy and bays) by turning the end of a hard piece upon the side of a piece that is soft and dry, like a spindle on its inke, by which it heats, and at length burns; to this they put sometimes also rotten wood and dry leaves, to hasten the work.