Note 48 — A Relation of the Cus­toms, Man­ners, Ab­surd­i­ties, and Re­li­gion of the SUSQUEHANOCK (see note No. 46) INDIANS in and near MARY-LAND.

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Smith thus describes them: “Sixty of those Sasquesahanocks came to vs with skins, Bowes, Arrows, Targets, Beads, swords and Tobacco pipes for presents. Such great and well proportioned men are seldome seene, for they seemed like Giants to the English; yea and to the neighbours, yet seemed of an honest and simple disposition, with much adoe restrained from adoring vs as Gods. Those are the strangest people of all those Countries, both in language and attire; for their language it may well beseeme their proportions, sounding from them as a voyce in a vault. Their attire is the skinnes of Beares, and Woolues, some have Cassacks made of Beares heads and skinnes, that a mans head goes through the skinnes neck, and the eares of the Beare fastened to his shoulders, the nose and teeth hanging downe his breast, another Beares face split behind him, and at the end of the Nose hung a Pawe, the halfe sleeues comming to the elbowes were the neckes of Beares and the armes through the mouth with the pawes hanging at their noses. One had the head of a Wolfe hanging in a chaine for a Iewell, his tobacco pipe three-quarters of a yard long, prettily carued with a Bird, a Deere or some such devise at the great end, sufficient to beat out ones braines; with Bowes, Arrowes and Clubs, suitable to their greatnesse. They are scarce known to Powhatan. They can make near 600 able men, and are palisadoed in their Townes to defend them from the Massawomekes, their mortal enemies. Five of their chief Werowances came aboord vs and crossed the Bay in their Barge. The picture of the greatest of them is signified in the Mappe. The calfe of whose leg was three-quarters of a yard about, and all the rest of his limbes so answerable to that proportion, that he seemed the goodliest man we ever beheld. His hayre, the one side was long, the other shore close with a ridge over his crowue like a cocks combe. His arrowes were five-quarters long, headed with the splinters of a White christall-like stone, in form of a heart, an inch broad, and an inch and a halfe or more long. These he wore in a Woolues skinne at his backe for his quiver, his bow in one hand and his club in the other, as described.”—Smith’s Voyages (Am. ed.), I, p. 119–20. Tattooing referred to by our author, was an ancient Egyptian custom, and is still retained by the women. See Lane’s Modern Egyptians, etc. It was forbidden to the Jews in Leviticus, 19: 28.

“Purchas, his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, and the Religions observed in all Ages and Places discovered, from the Creation unto this present,” 1 vol., folio, 1613. In spite of Alsop, Purchas is still highly esteemed. {123}

As to their treatment of prisoners, see Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, II, p. 260.

Smith thus locates their town: “The Sasquesahannocks inhabit vpon the cheefe spring of these foure branches of the Bayes head, one day’s journey higher than our barge could passe for rocks,” vol. I, p. 182. Campanius thus describes their town, which he represents as twelve miles from New Sweden: “They live on a high mountain, very steep and difficult to climb; there they have a fort or square building, surrounded with palisades. There they have guns and small iron cannon, with which they shoot and defend themselves, and take with them when they go to war.”—Campanius’s Nye Sverige, p. 181; Du Ponceau’s translation, p. 158. A view of a Sasquesahannock town is given in Montanus, De Nieuwe en Onbekende Weereld (1671), p. 136, based evidently on Smith. De Lisle’s Map, dated June, 1718, lays down Canoge, Fort des Indiens Andastés ou Susquehanocs at about 40° N.; but I find the name nowhere else.

Scalping was practiced by the Scythians. (Herodotus, book IV, and in the second book of Macchabees, VII, 4, 7). Antiochus is said to have caused two of the seven Macchabee brothers to be scalped. “The skin of the head with the hairs being drawn off.” The torture of prisoners as here described originated with the Iroquois, and spread to nearly all the North American tribes. It was this that led the Algonquins to give the Iroquois tribes the names Magoué, Nadoué or Nottaway, which signified cruel. Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, II, p. 287.

The remarks here as to religion are vague. The Iroquois and Hurons recognized Aireskoi or Agreskoe, as the great deity, styling him also Teharonhiawagon. As to the Hurons, see Sagard, Histoire du Canada, p. 485. The sacrifice of a child, as noted by Alsop, was unknown in the other tribes of this race, and is not mentioned by Campanius in regard to this one. {124}

The priests were the medicine men in all probability; no author mentioning any class that can be regarded properly as priests.

The burial rites here described resemble those of the Iroquois (Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, II, pp. 389, 407) and of the Hurons, as described by Sagard (Histoire du Canada, p. 702) in the manner of placing the dead body in a sitting posture; but there it was wrapped in furs, encased in bark and set upon a scaffold till the feast of the dead.

Sagard, in his Huron Dictionary, gives village, andata; he is in the fort or village, andatagon; which is equivalent to Connadago, nd and nn being frequently used for each other.

For the condition of the women in a kindred tribe, compare Sagard, Histoire du Canada, p. 272; Grand Voyage, p. 130; Perrot, Moeurs et Coustumes des Sauvages, p. 30.

Among the Iroquois the husband elect went to the wife’s cabin and sat down on the mat opposite the fire. If she accepted him she presented him a bowl of hominy and sat down beside him, turning modestly away. He then ate some and soon after retired.—Lafitau, Moeurs des Sauvages, I, p. 566.

Sagard, in his Histoire du Canada, p. 185, makes a similar remark as to the Hurons, a kindred tribe, men and women acting as here stated, and he says that in this they resembled the ancient Egyptians. Compare Hennepin, Moeurs des Sauvages, p. 54; Description d’un Pays plus grand que l’Europe, Voyages au Nord, V, p. 341. {125}

This characteristic of the active trading propensities of the early settlers will apply to the present race of Americans in a fourfold degree.

One who brought goods to Maryland without following such advice as Alsop gives, describes in Hudibrastic verse his doleful story in the Sot Weed Factor, recently reprinted.

For an account of this gentleman, see ante, p. 13.

The rebellion in Maryland, twice alluded to by our author in his letters, was a very trifling matter. On the restoration of Charles II, Lord Baltimore sent over his brother Philip Calvert as governor, with authority to proceed against Governor Fendall, who, false alike to all parties, was now scheming to overthrow the proprietary government. The new governor was instructed on no account to permit Fendall to escape with his life; but Philip Calvert was more clement than Lord Baltimore, and though Fendall made a fruitless effort to excite the people to opposition, he was, on his voluntary submission, punished by a merely short imprisonment. This clemency he repaid by a subsequent attempt to excite a rebellion.—McMahon’s History of Maryland, pp. 213–14, citing Council Proceedings from 1656 to 1668, liber H. H., 74 to 82.

THE END.