The society reporter would not have been at all competent had he omitted a careful description of the princess' gown. He had peculiar advantages for observing it.
"I was once early at her howse (yt being sommer tyme), when she was layed without dores under the shadowe of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet of osiers spred over with four or five fyne grey matts, herself covered with a faire white drest deer skynne or two. When she rose, she had a mayd who fetcht her a frontall of white currall, and pendants of great, but imperfect-couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into her eares; and a chayne with long lyncks of copper which came twice or thrice about her neck and they acompt a jolly ornament; and sure thus attired with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their heires, they seem as debonaire, quaynt, and well pleased as (I wis) a daughter of the house of Austria behune with all her jewells; likewise her mayd fecht her a mantell which is like a side cloake, made of blew feathers, so artificyally and thick sewed together that it seemed like a deepe purple satten and is very smooth and sleeke; and after she brought her water for her hands, and then a braunch or two of fresh greene asshen leaves as for a towell to dry them."
A very observant Briton was William Strachey, Gent.! We are grateful for this glimpse of one of the royal family, whose dress and customs must have been those of all the others—although, as there was a decided coolness between the Princess Pepisco and the emperor, probably she did not visit the Princess Pocahontas.
The mantle of skins or feathers was, however, worn by Indian queens as late as 1676, when the Queen of Pamunkey, a niece of Powhatan's, appeared in the House of Burgesses clad in a buckskin robe cut into long fringes. When Pocahontas, in the painting in the Capitol at Washington, is pictured in an æsthetic robe of chiffon or some such soft, clinging material, with a long flowing train (as at her baptism), the artist does her great injustice. We presume that some good Christian woman at Jamestown may have provided a garment suitable for the Christian ceremonial, but if so, it was a short petticoat and ruff! And the Oriental dress swathing her lithe form in the painting representing her marriage is just as improbable as the sublime, heroic attitude of her prosaic bridegroom, as he, with lifted hand and eyes, invokes the Almighty as witness of his pious self-sacrifice.
The publication, in 1849, of Strachey's "Virginia Britannia" aroused quite as much interest in London as in this country. I wish I could quote all of his descriptions of Indian life. The London Athenæum of 1850 calls attention to the prophetic motto which prefaces the volume: "This shal be written for the generations to come: and the people which shal be created shall praise the Lord." It slept in obscurity for nearly twelve generations—allowing four to a century.
The Athenæum epitomizes the dress, customs, and descriptions of the Virginia Indians. All these are interesting to us, now that the mysterious savage is so far away from our observation, but for all these things I must refer my readers to other historians. The one point which must ever be accentuated in our estimate of the character of the Virginia Indians is the secrecy and cruelty of their human sacrifices. Once every year the tribes were summoned to listen to the dread call of Okeus, for young children to pacify his anger and ensure success in war, the hunt, and the harvest. There at Utamussac—the spot that no Indian passed without trembling—pitiful women surrendered their babes, and when all was over returned "weeping bitterly," while the men rejoiced and sang. Now all would be well! The arrow would be directed swiftly and surely to the heart of the foe, or the deer; no blight would fall upon the corn; the women would be faithful, the men strong.
Pocahontas was living retired (in her widowhood we are forced to believe) when Powhatan's old enmity awoke, and more arms were stolen from the fort, more sneaking depredations made upon the settlements now beginning to creep along the banks of the river. Captain Argall, who was sent by Sir Thomas Dale to the Potomac to trade for corn, contrived to ingratiate himself with Japazaws, a friendly chief, and from him learned that Pocahontas was living with him. Japazaws had seen a gorgeous copper kettle on board of Argall's ship, and the latter conceived the design of exchanging it for Pocahontas, holding her prisoner, and forcing her father to ransom her. Japazaws had much more interest in the kettle than in his wife's guest, and Pocahontas was easily persuaded to accompany the latter on board to "see the ship." The kettle was transferred while she was alone for a few minutes, and her treacherous friends descended with it to their quintan and were well on their way to shore when she was told the truth.[76] She burst into tears, poor little widow, but soon dried her eyes upon learning that she would be kindly treated and conveyed to the spot of all others most interesting to her.
Powhatan was enraged! He, however, after thinking the matter over for three months, sent back some prisoners and a few unserviceable muskets with many promises of further restitution, of corn, of peace, and amity. The captors refused to surrender their willing prisoner, Pocahontas, until full satisfaction should be rendered. Powhatan was deeply offended, and nothing more was heard from him until another overture from Argall.
Meanwhile Pocahontas found favour in the eyes of Sir Thomas Dale, "a man of good conscience and knowledge in divinitie," and he ordered that she should be carefully taught, cared for in every particular, and instructed in the Christian faith. The pious Rev. Mr. Whitaker was only too happy to undertake her religious education. As to the rest, her English was imperfect, and she never learned to write. Everybody at Jamestown knew of her early devotion to Captain Smith and to the starving colonists, and honoured her accordingly. Master John Rolfe soon became interested in her, and it was not long before he wrote the most remarkable letter to Governor Dale that was ever penned by lover to a lady's guardian. He tells of the throes of conscience that came near tearing his soul from his body. He remembers "the heavy displeasure which Almighty God conceived against the sons of Levi and Israel for marrying strange wives," and he is fully aware that "her education hath been rude, her manners barbarous, her generation accursed"—and as these were times when belief in a personal devil was universal, and also in the malignant influence of witches (only the latter were never young and beautiful), he is "full of feare and trembling." His love has caused "a mighty war in his meditations." Nor does he forget his own social position. He belongs to a very good family indeed in England, "nor am I so desperate in estate that I regard not what becometh of mee, nor am I out of hope but one day to see my countrie, nor so void of friends, nor mean in birth, but there to obtain a match to my great content." How he proposed, in that event, to dispose of Pocahontas does not appear. He goes on in this strain for fully thirty or more pages of the foolscap paper of the present time, and we can see the wild-eyed, haggard widower lover tearing along by the light of a dim wick in oil, with his quill pen diving deep into his ink-horn.
"Was ever maiden in such humour wooed?
Was ever maiden in such humour won?"