Prophecies had been made by the priests that a nation would come from the East which would destroy him and his empire, that twice he should thwart and overthrow the strangers, but the third time he would fall under their subjection. This then was the fateful third! "Strange whispers and secrett, ran among the people. Every newes or blast of rumour struck them, to which they would open wyde their eares, and keepe their eyes waking with good espiall of everything that sturred; the noyse of drums, the shrill trumpets and great ordinances would startle them how far soever from the reach of daunger. Suspicions bredd straunge feares amongst them, and those feares created straunge construccions, and those construccions begatt strong watch and gard especially about their great Kinge, who thrust forth trusty skowtes and carefull sentinells (as before mencyoned) which reached even from his owne court down to our palisado gates, which answeared one another duly."
The Indian, as we have noted, knew not how to express himself by any kind of letters, by writing, or marks on trees, or pictures, as do other barbarians. They had no positive laws, their king ruling only by custom. His will was law. He was obeyed as a king and as a god. Traditional laws and rules were well understood by his successors, for the descent was not from father to son, but all the sons of one kingly father ruled successively, then all the daughters, so the children of one father were long the sole custodians and interpreters of the laws. The succession was through the heirs of the sisters, not through the men of the family. The ruling of the great Powhatan was most tyrannous, the punishment for trifling faults cruel to an extreme. He personally superintended the beating, the burning alive, the dismembering of those who displeased him.
The habitations of the Indians were all alike. They had but one style of architecture. They usually built upon an elevation commanding a view of their only thoroughfare, the river, and not far from springs of fresh water. They built under the trees, for defence against winds and storms and the scorching heat of the summer sun. They planted young saplings in the earth and tied their tops together, covering all closely with the bark of trees.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, beautiful arbours of fragrant cedar were constructed after the Indian fashion as ornamental features in Virginia landscape gardening—omitting the bark, and shaving close the green foliage.
The walls of the Indian houses were lined with mats. A doorway was hung with a skin or mat. There were no windows or chimneys. A hole in the roof provided for the escape of the smoke from the fire kept burning immediately beneath it. An old writer remarks that they were "somewhat smoaky"! There was no furniture of any kind in these rude huts. All around, in the best houses, ran a low arrangement of poles, forming the sides of the sleeping-bunks, and within, on skins and mats, lay the household of twenty or more, men, women, and children. One was detailed to watch and replenish the fire while the rest slept. If more light was needed, it was provided from a pile of resinous sticks—their only candle or lamp. In these huts they lived all winter, cooking and working on their household utensils and various articles of dress. They had no needles or pins, no knives except sharpened reeds, yet they managed with strips of deerskin to sew skins together for leggings and moccasins, embroider them with pearl or shells, hollow the wooden blocks into bowls, and weave mats from grass. Powhatan's favourite wife, Winganuskie, and the Princess Pocahontas had no better home than this in winter. Pocahontas knew no other except during the few years of her married life, and of her captivity before it.
The men spent their time in hunting and fishing and in warfare and manly sports. In time of peace, they exercised in out-of-door games. They played "bandy" with crooked sticks, "an auncient game," says Strachey, who indulged abundantly in the parole of literary men, "as yt seemeth in Virgil, for when Æneas came into Italy at his marriage with Lavinia, yt is said the Trojans taught the Latins scipping and frisking with a ball." The Indians also played a game described as "a forcible encounter with the foot to carry a ball the one from the other, and spurne yt to the goale with a kind of dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honour of yt; yet they never strike up on another's heeles as we doe, not accompting that praiseworthie to purchase a goale by such an advantage."
All the domestic labour was performed by the poor drudging women and the children. They also cleared the ground for their gardens and cornfields, planted corn, beans, pumpkins, "maracocks," and gourds, and kept the growing plants free from weeds. They pounded the corn in wooden mortars for bread, sifting it through baskets, and boiling the coarse refuse for hominy. They dressed all the food and served it. They were also barbers for their husbands, using two oyster-shells to grate away beard and hair.
Henry Spelman, an English boy who was sold to an Indian chief, lived as a servant for many years among the savages. He relates an incident of domestic life in the household of the king of Paspetanzy, who "went to visitt another king, and one of his wives after his departure would goe visitt her father, and she willed me to goe with hir and take hir child and carye him thither in my armes, being a long days journey from the place where we dwelt, which I refusing she strook me 3 or 4 blows." This it appears was too much for the free-born Briton. "I gott to hir and puld hir downe, giving hir some blows agayne which the other King's wives perseyvinge they fell on me and beat me so as I thought they had lamed me." It appears the lady's filial intentions were not carried out, the heavy child being quite too much for her strength. All awaited the return of the king, and the indignant Henry boldly told his side of the story. There had been quarrels and fights before in the king's household, and he knew how to deal with them. The remedy was at hand. Taking up a "paring iron" he struck his wife and felled her to the ground, whereupon Henry, by no means sure upon whom the instrument of domestic discipline would fall next, fled to a neighbour's house and hid. His position was a perilous one, his fate uncertain. The Indian baby settled the question. Henry had been an affectionate nurse and perhaps bedfellow to the little pappoose, who now lifted up his voice in loud lamentations, howling for his white friend until midnight. The king was weary and longed for sleep. Search was made for Henry, and at midnight the child was sent to him, as he says "to still; for none could quiet him so well as myself."
The king, having had a good night's rest, was up early next morning to interview Henry, and to assure him that no evil intent was cherished against him, that his "Queene" was all right, that everybody loved him, and none should hurt him; his Majesty content, as we all can understand, to eat a good bit of humble-pie rather than lose a good nurse! "I was loth to goe with him," says Henry, "and at my cumminge the Queene looked but discontentedly at me, but I had the Kinge's promise and cared ye less for others frownes." There is something very pathetic in the boy's narrative. He was the son of an eminent scholar, Sir Henry Spelman, but, impatient of restraint, had run away from a comfortable English home, and here he was in the great wilderness, soothing the hunger of his heart in the companionship of a savage baby.
The Indian knew no means of providing for the future, except the husbanding, in great baskets, of his corn, drying persimmons on hurdles and oysters on strings. He never herded wild cattle or tamed the wild turkeys. Each season Nature brought of her abundance to these her untutored children, fish, game, fruits, melons, and in the hardest times acorns and roots. When famine seemed imminent, they would migrate in great companies to hunt the deer, the women going before, bearing on their backs mats, household utensils, skins for bedding, and even poles for the temporary huts. They would stake out the camp and make all ready for the men. Then in leisure hours the young maidens, round, pretty creatures with small hands and feet, would freshly paint themselves a brilliant red, and seated at the door of the sylvan arbour watch the young braves,—heavy, thick-lipped, thick-nosed fellows, but active and straight-limbed; magnificent and terrible in skins decorated with the dried hands of their enemies, claws of beasts and birds; and with green and yellow snakes thrust alive through their ears,—while they practised shooting arrows at a mark. The straightest, surest marksman would find no trouble in winning the prettiest maiden. Pretty maidens, all the world over, have realized that they needed game, furs, pearls, and copper. The arrow won them in 1607 as surely as a coup in Wall Street or in trade wins them in 1907. The comment of our historian seems to us as reasonable as it is quaint: "Every man in tyme of hunting will strive to doe his best, for thereby they wyn the loves of their women, who will be sooner contented to live with such a man by the readyness and fortune of whose bow they perceave they are likely to be fedd well, especially of fish and flesh; for indeed they be all of them huge eaters, and these active hunters by their continuall ranging and travell do know all places most frequented and best stored with deare or other beasts, fish, fowle, roots, fruits, and berries."