Of course the English colonist would be keenly curious as to the fauna and flora of the new land. There were "such faire meadowes and goodly tall trees," says Percy,[15] "with such Fresh-waters running through the woods, as I was almost ravished at the first sight thereof. My selfe and three or foure more walking into the Woods, by chance we espied a path-way like to an Irish pace. We were desirous to knowe whither it would bring us. Wee traced along some foure miles, all the way as wee went having the pleasantest Suckles, the ground all bespred and flowing over with faire flowers of sundry colours and kindes as though it had been any Garden or Orchard in England."
Mute witnesses to the truth of Percy's picture will be found at the opening of our coming celebration, if our guests can find a convenient forest. In it will be seen just the flowers that so ravished his soul: the white honeysuckles, the scarlet trumpet creeper, the clematis, white and purple tipped, the sweetbrier, violets, swamp roses, red swamp lilies.
"There be many Strawberries," continues Percy, "and other fruites unknowne. Wee saw the Woods full of Cedar and Cypresse Trees with other trees (out of) which issues our sweet Gummes like to Balsam, and so wee kept on our way in this Paradise." There were not many "fruits unknown." One of these, highly esteemed, was "maracocks"—the seed-pod of the passionflower,[16] which was not dismissed from the list of Virginia fruits until the middle of the last century. Until then it was cultivated in gardens for its fruit as well as its flowers. There was also another new fruit, still prized by the Virginia schoolboy, and still found by him to "draw a man's mouth awrie with much torment" if incautiously meddled with when green or yellow. Only when red is it ripe and "as delicious as an Apricocke." Need we say this is the Virginia persimmon—a corruption of the "putchamin" of the Indian? There were no peaches or apples, only two kinds of plums, grapes, and berries,—strawberries, mulberries, and whortleberries or "hurts." All other fruits were introduced by the English. There were no sheep, oxen, goats, or horses, no chickens or other domestic poultry. There were wild turkeys, none domesticated. The deer was king, but never used as a beast of burden. Bears, rabbits or hares, squirrels, the otter and the beaver; birds without number (their king the eagle)—these were indigenous to the new land, planted there when God made it, their flesh the food of man, their skins his garment.
And there, too, was man as God made him. To this day nothing is known of the origin of the North American Indian—whence he came, or what his early history. There he was—having evolved little for himself. His one discovery had been fire. He had used what he found, but manufactured little except bows and arrows, rude mats and baskets woven of grass, earthen pipes and pots, and uncouth garments fashioned without scissors or knives, and sewed with the sinews of the deer. He had no textile fabric of any kind. When necessary to defend himself against the cold, he had killed a deer or raccoon and slipped his shivering limbs within the skin, or fashioned a mantle of the warm feathers of the turkey. In these he exhibited no perception of grace or beauty. Nature offered him her loveliest expression of both, but when he essayed ornament on his skin or scant garment, he elected only the terrible. Even the young girls bound horns to their heads instead of flowers. Writers of the period often speak of coral—but there was no coral in the Virginia waters. Pearls they had, and the teeth of animals to string for beads and fringes.
The Indian had made no utensil of iron or the copper he so much prized. When he needed a canoe or bowl, he burnt the wood, then scraped it with oyster shells, and burned again, until the wood was hollowed out. How he ever felled a tree is a mystery! Weeks of scraping and burning were spent on each canoe. He had no written language, no signs recording past events. He had done nothing for himself except to minister to the needs of the hour. There was no hieroglyphic, no testimony of the rocks. Even the humble art of pottery, the earliest trace of the human race, was not found among the American Indians to any extent. A few broken earthen pipes and bowls, arrow-heads of flint, remnants of shell necklaces, these are all that the ploughshare of the labourer or the pick and shovel of the antiquarian have ever revealed.
Of the temper and disposition of the "Naturells," as King James called them, we shall have abundant occasion to learn; but as Powhatan and his people play a leading rôle in the following story it is indispensable that my reader be made acquainted with the religion, customs, and habits of this tribe of Indians. We have given space to a brief sketch of the English monarch. The American monarch surely claims some attention before we enter upon the story of the struggle between the two: between the Stuarts of England and the Algonquins of America!
Historians of the Indians have asserted that the tribes under King Philip and those subject to Powhatan were of a higher class than many other of the North American Indians, more restrained by social and tribal laws, more cleanly in their habits, more intelligent in every way. They are an intensely interesting and mysterious people, and romantic writers love to invest them with virtues which the Powhatans, at least, did not possess. John Smith and Strachey argue that "they are inconstant in everie thing but what peace constraineth them to keepe. Craftie, timerous, quicke of apprehension, and very ingenious: some bold, most cautious, all Savage: soone moved to anger, and so malitious they seldom forget an injury." Schoolcraft, the modern Indian historian, said to me "they had not a single virtue or single trait of true nobility." They never met a foe in an open field,—cunning was their best weapon,—but some virtues they surely had, nevertheless.
CHAPTER VII
Hidden in a dense forest on the banks of the Pamunkey, was Uttamussac, the greatest temple in Powhatan's kingdom. In every territory governed by a "werowance" there were smaller temples and priests. Each of the petty rulers under the great emperor had his spiritual adviser—some priest or conjurer, wise in the sacred mysteries and beloved of the gods, from whose decisions in spiritual matters there was no appeal. According to the wealth of the werowance were the size and dignity of the temple, varying from a small arbour of twenty feet to a structure a hundred feet long. The door opened to the east, and there were pillars and windings within, with rude black images looking down the church to the platform of reeds; upon which, wrapped in skins, lay the skeletons of dead priests and kings. Beneath the platform, veiled with a mat of woven grasses, sat "Okeus," an ill-favoured black demon, well hung with chains of pearl and copper. He it was to whom children must be sacrificed, lest he blight the corn, or cause briers to wound the feet and limbs of travellers through the forests, or enemies to prevail, or women to be barren or false, or thunder and lightning to destroy. He it was who had been seen leaping through the corn-fields, crying "Ohé! Ohé!" just before some signal disaster. There was also a far-away, peaceable God, variously known as "Ahone" or "Kiwassa"—"The One All Alone." He too had once walked among them. Are there not gigantic footprints five feet apart on the rocks yet visible near Richmond at Powhatan? These are the footprints of the good god as he once strode through the land of the great chief. To him it was, of course, unnecessary to sacrifice, inasmuch as he was by nature benevolent. But he was not as powerful as Okeus—Okeus, who sternly held the scales of justice, and was to be placated by nothing short of their dearest and best, their precious, innocent little children.
The pious men who emigrated to Virginia within the first twenty years of its settlement firmly believed that Satan had here established his kingdom; that the priests were his ministers, inspired by him to threaten the people unless they held to the ancient customs of their fathers. It was remembered that in all ages of the world this arch-enemy of mankind had demanded human sacrifice from his followers,—from the times of the ancient Carthaginians, Persians, and Britons. Now, in Florida, he claimed the first-born male child, and in Mexico prisoners taken in war. The priests of Powhatan failed not to instruct the werowances that if the prescribed number of children were withheld, Okeus, who was sure to prevail in the end, would then be appeased only by a hecatomb of children. Nor would any sacrifice avert his wrath if a nation despising the ancient religion of their forefathers was permitted to inhabit among them, since their own god had hitherto preserved them and from age to age given them victory over their enemies.