He is a goodly old man, not yet shrinking, though well beaten with many cold and stormy winters, in which he hath been patient of many necessities and attempts of his fortune to make his name and family great. He is supposed to be little less than eighty years old, I dare not say how much more. Others say he is of a tall stature and clean limbs, of a sad aspect, round, fat-visaged, with gray hairs, but plain and thin, hanging upon his broad shoulders; some few hairs upon his chin, and so on his upper lip. He hath been a strong and able savage, sinewy, and of a daring spirit, vigilant, ambitious, subtile to enlarge his dominions.… Cruel he hath been, and quarrelsome,as well with his own weroances[309] for trifles, and that to strike a terror and awe into them of his power and condition, as also with his neighbors, in his younger days, though now delighted in security and pleasure.…
Watchful he is over us,and keeps good espial[310] upon our proceedings, concerning which he hath his sentinels, that—at what time soever any of our boats, pinnaces,or ships come in, fall down, or make up the river—give the alarm, and take it quickly one from the other, until it reach and come even to the court or hunting-house, wheresoever he and his cronoccoes, that is, councillors and priests, are; and then he calls to advise, and gives out directions what is to be done.… About his person ordinarily attendeth a guard of forty or fifty of the tallest men his country do afford. Every night, upon the four quarters of his house, are four sentinels drawn forth,each standing from other a flight-shot;[311] and at every half-hour,one from the corps de garde[312] doth halloo, unto whom every sentinel returns answer round from his stand: if any fail, an officer is presently sent forth that beateth him extremely.
The word weroance, which we call and construe for a king, is a common word, whereby they call all commanders; for they have but few words in their language, and but few occasions to use any officers more than one commander, which commonly they call weroance.
It is strange to see with what great fear and adoration all this people do obey this Powhatan; for at his feet they present whatsoever he commandeth: and at the least frown of his brow the greatest will tremble, it may be because he is very terrible and inexorable in punishing such as offend him.… And sure it is to be wondered at, how such a barbarous and uncivil prince should take unto him—adorned and set forth with no great outward ornament and munificence—a form and ostentation of such majesty as he expresseth, which oftentimes strikes awe and sufficient wonder in our people presenting themselves before him.
VI.—A Virginia Princess.
Nor is [she] so handsome a savage woman as I have seen amongst them, yet with a kind of pride can take upon her a show of greatness; for we have seen her forbear to come out of her quintan, or boat, through the water, as the other, both maids and married women, usually do, unless she were carried forth between two of her servants. I was once early at her house—it being summer time—when she was laid without doors, under the shadow of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet of osiers, spread over with four or five fine gray mats, herself covered with a fair white dressed deerskin or two; and, when she rose,she had a maid who fetched her a frontall[313] of white coral, and pendants of great but imperfect colored and worse drilled pearls, which she put into her ears, and a chain with long links of copper, which they call tapoantaminais, and which came twice or thrice about her neck, and they account a jolly ornament. And sure thus attired, with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their hairs, they seem as debonaire, quaint, and well pleased as …a daughter of the house of Austria[314] decked with all her jewels. Likewise, her maid fetched her a mantle, which they call puttawus, which is like a side cloak, made of blue feathers, so artificially and thick sewed together, that it seemed like a deep purple satin, and is very smooth and sleek; and after, she brought her water for her hands, and then a branch or two of fresh green ashen leaves, as for a towel to dry them.
VII.—An Indian Dance in Virginia.
