Note 284-2 — Chapter X

Beverly, Hist. de la Virginie, p. 266. The dialect he specifies is “celle d’Occaniches,” and on page 252 he says, “On dit que la langue universelle des Indiens de ces Quartiers est celle des Occaniches, quoiqu’ils ne soient qu’une petite Nation, depuis que les Anglois connoissent ce Pais; mais je ne sais pas la difference qui’l y a entre cette langue et celle des Algonkins.” (French trans., Orleans, 1707.) This is undoubtedly the same people that Johannes Lederer, a German traveller, visited in 1670, and calls Akenatzi. They dwelt on an island, in a branch of the Chowan River, the Sapona, or Deep River (Lederer’s Discovery of North America, in Harris, Voyages, p. 20). Thirty years later the English surveyor, Lawson, found them in the same spot, and speaks of them as the Acanechos (see Am. Hist. Mag., i. p. 163). Their totem was that of the serpent, and their name is not altogether unlike the Tuscarora name of this animal usquauhne. As the serpent was so widely a sacred animal, this gives Beverly’s remarks an unusual significance. It by no means follows from this name that they were of Iroquois descent. Lederer travelled with a Tuscarora (Iroquois) interpreter, who gave them their name in his own tongue. On the contrary, it is extremely probable that they were an Algonkin totem, which had the exclusive right to the priesthood.