See also Gookin’s Indians, I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 154; Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 356; and Champlain’s Voyages, vol. iii. p. 171. Champlain says the Indians do not worship any God; “they have, however, some respect for the devil.”
[256] [Ingling.] See supra, [111], note 1.
[257] In regard to the Indian Powaws, priests, or medicine men, and their methods of dealing with the sick, see the detailed account in Champlain’s Voyages, vol. iii. pp. 171-8; Josselyn’s Two Voyages, p. 134; Wood’s Prospect, p. 71; Williams’s Key, ch. xxxi.; Gookin’s Indians, I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 154; Young’s Chron. of Pilg., pp. 317, 357; Lechford’s Plaine Dealing, (Trumbull’s ed.) p. 117; Parkman’s Jesuits in North America, pp. lxxxiv.-lxxxvii.; also Magnalia, B. III. part. iii., where Mather says: “In most of their dangerous distempers, it is a powaw that must be sent for; that is, a priest who has more familiarity with Satan than his neighbors; this conjurer comes and roars and howls and uses magical ceremonies over the sick man, and will be well paid for it when he is done; if this don’t effect the cure, the ‘man’s time is come, and there’s an end.’” For a summary in Indian medical practice, see further, Ellis’s Red Man and White Man, pp. 127-33.
[258] Passaconoway, already referred to (supra, p. [150], note), dwelt at a place called Pennakook, and his dominions extended over the sachems living upon the Piscataqua and its branches. The young Sachem of Saugus was named Winnepurkitt, and was commonly known among the English as George Rumney-marsh. He was a son of Nanepashemet, and at one time proprietor of Deer Island in Boston Harbor. (Drake’s Book of the Indians, ed. 1851, pp. 105, 111, 278.) The incident in the text has been made the subject of a poem, The Bridal of Pennacook, by Whittier, and Drake repeats it; but as Winnepurkitt is said by Drake to have been born in 1616, and to have succeeded Montowampate as Sachem in 1633, and as Morton, at the close of the present chapter, declares that “the lady, when I came out of the country [in 1630], remained still with her father,” the whole story would seem to be not only highly inconsistent with what we know of Indian life and habits, but also at variance with facts and dates.
[259] [not determined.] See supra, [111], note 1.
[260] Josselyn’s account of the Indian wampum is written, more than any other which has come down to us, in the spirit of the New Canaan: “Their Merchandize are their beads, which are their money, of these there are two sorts, blew Beads and white Beads, the first is their Gold, the last their Silver, these they work out of certain shells so cunningly that neither Jew nor Devil can counterfeit, they dril them and string them, and make many curious works with them to adorn the persons of their Sagamores and principal men and young women, as Belts, Girdles, Tablets, Borders for their womens hair, Bracelets, Necklaces, and links to hang in their ears. Prince Phillip, a little before I came for England, coming to Boston, had a coat on and Buskins set thick with these Beads in pleasant wild works, and a broad belt of the same; his Accoutrements were valued at Twenty pounds. The English Merchant giveth them ten shillings a fathom for their white, and as much more or near upon for their blew beads.” (Two Voyages, pp. 142-3.)
There is a much better description of wampum in Lawson’s account of Carolina, quoted by Drake (Book of the Indians, p. 328), in which he says that wampum was current money among the Indians “all over the continent, as far as the bay of Mexico.” Lawson’s explanation of the fact that wampum was not counterfeited to any considerable extent is much more natural than Morton’s. It cost more to counterfeit it than it was worth. “To make this Peak it cost the English five or ten times as much as they could get for it; whereas it cost the Indians nothing, because they set no value upon their time, and therefore have no competitors to fear, or that others will take its manufacture out of their hands.”
Roger Williams (Key, ch. xxvi.) devotes considerable space to this subject, and says: “They [the Indians] hang these strings of money about their necks and wrists; as also upon the necks and wrists of their wives and children. They make [girdles] curiously of one, two, three, foure and five inches thickness and more, of this money which (sometimes to the value of ten pounds and more) they weare about their middle and as a scarfe about their shoulders and breasts. Yea, the Princes make rich Caps and Aprons (or small breeches) of these Beads thus curiously strung into many formes and figures: their blacke and white finely mixt together.” See also Trumbull’s notes in his edition of the Key, and Palfrey, vol. i. p. 31. Parkman (Jesuits in North America, pp. xxxi., lxi.) says of wampum: “This was at once their currency, their ornament, their pen, ink and parchment.” He describes the uses to which it was put among the Hurons and Iroquois, but adds: “The art [of working it] soon fell into disuse, however; for wampum better than their own was brought them by the traders, besides abundant imitations in glass and porcelain.”
[261] “How have foule hands (in smoakie houses) the first handling of these Furres which are often worne upon the hands of Queens and heads of Princes!” (Williams’s Key, p. 158.)
[262] There is obviously some corruption of the original manuscript here, but I have been unable to obtain any even plausible suggestion of what word may have been turned into “reles” through the compositor’s inability to decipher copy.