While in this situation, fresh runners arrive, declaring it a house of various colors, and crowded with living creatures. It now appears to be certain that it is the great Mannitto bringing them some kind of game, such as they had not before; but other runners, soon after arriving, declare it a large house of various colors, full of people, yet of quite a different color than they—the Indians—are of; that they were also dressed in a different manner from them, and that one in particular appeared altogether red, which must be the Mannitto himself.
They are soon hailed from the vessel, though in a language they do not understand; yet they shout—or yell—in their way. Many are for running off to the woods, but are pressed by others to stay in order not to give offence to their visitors, who could find them out, and might destroy them. The house—or large canoe, as some will have it—stops, and a smaller canoe comes ashore with the red man and some others in it:some stay by this canoe to guard it. The chiefs and wise men (or councillors) have composed a large circle, unto which the red-clothed man with two others approach. He salutes them with friendly countenance; and they return the salute, after their manner. They are lost in admiration, both as to the color of the skin of these whites, as also to their manner of dress, yet most as to the habit of him who wore the red clothes, which shone with something they could not account for. He must be the great Mannitto (supreme Being), they think; but why should he have a white skin?
A large hockhack[361] is brought forward by one of the (supposed) Mannitto’s servants, and from this a substance is poured out into a small cup (or glass), and handed to the Mannitto. The (expected) Mannitto drinks, has the glass filled again, and hands it to the chief next to him to drink. The chief receives the glass, but only smelleth at it, and passes it on to the next chief, who does the same. The glass thus passes through the circle without its contents being tasted by any one, and is on the point of being returned again to the red-clothed man, when one of their number, a spirited man and great warrior, jumps up, harangues the assembly on the impropriety of returning the glass with the contents in it; that the same was handed them by the Mannitto in order that they should drink it, as he himself had done before them; that this would please him, but to return what he had given to them might provoke him, and be the cause of their being destroyed by him; and that since he believed it for the good of the nation that the contents offered themshould be drunk, and as no one was willing to drink it, he would, let the consequences be what it would; and that it was better for one man to die than a whole nation to be destroyed.
He then took the glass, and, bidding the assembly farewell, drank it off. Every eye was fixed on their resolute companion, to see what an effect this would have upon him; and he soon beginning to stagger about, and at last dropping to the ground, they bemoan him. He falls into a sleep, and they view him as expiring. He awakes again, jumps up, and declares that he never felt himself before so happy as after he had drank the cup; wishes for more. His wish is granted; and the whole assembly soon join him, and become intoxicated.
After this general intoxication had ceased,—during which time the whites had confined themselves to their vessel,—the man with the red clothes returned again to them, and distributed presents among them; to wit, beads, axes, hoes, stockings, &c. They say that they had become familiar to each other, and were made to understand by signs that they now would return home, but would visit them next year again, when they would bring them more presents, and stay with them a while; but that, as they could not live without eating, they should then want a little land of them to sow seeds, in order to raise herbs to put in their broth. That the vessel arrived the season following, and they were much rejoiced at seeing each other; but that the whites laughed at them, [the Indians,] seeing they knew not the use of the axes, hoes, &c., they had given them; they having had these hanging to their breasts as ornaments;and the stockings they had made use of as tobacco-pouches. The whites now put handles (or helves) in the former, and cut trees down before their eyes, and dug the ground, and showed them the use of their stockings. Here—say they—a general laugh ensued among them [the Indians] that they had remained for so long a time ignorant of the use of so valuable implements; and had borne with the weight of such heavy metal hanging to their necks for such a length of time.
They took every white man they saw for a Mannitto, yet inferior and attendant to the supreme Mannitto; to wit, to the one which wore the red and laced clothes. Familiarity daily increasing between them and the whites, the latter now proposed to stay with them, asking them only for so much land as the hide of a bullock would cover (or encompass), which hide was brought forward, and spread on the ground before them. That they readily granted this request; whereupon the whites took a knife, and, beginning at one place on this hide, cut it into a rope not thicker than the finger of a little child, so that, by the time this hide was cut up, there was a great heap. That this rope was drawn out to a great distance, and then brought around again, so that both ends might meet. That they carefully avoided its breaking, and that upon the whole it encompassed a large piece of ground. That they [the Indians] were surprised at the superior wit of the whites, but did not wish to contend with them about a little land, as they had enough.
That they and the whites lived for a long time contentedly together, although these asked from time totime more land of them; and, proceeding higher up the Mahicanittuk (Hudson River), they believed they would soon want all their country, and which at this time was already the case.
III.—The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, and how he was set adrift in the Ice by his Men.
[Hudson had discovered the bay which bears his name, and spent all winter amid the ice, remaining into the spring, until his provisions were about out, and his crew grew mutinous. One of the crew, Abacuk or Habaccuk Prickett, thus describes what followed.]