Note 240 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN.
Reading edition
In regard to the hospitality of the Indians, Wood says (Prospect, p. 59): “Though they be sometimes scanted, yet are they as free as Emperors, both to their countrymen and English, be he stranger or mere acquaintance; counting it a great discourtesie not to eat of their high conceited delicates, and sup of their un-oat-meal’d broth, made thick with fishes, fowles and beasts boiled all together; some remaining raw, the rest converted by over-much seething to a loathed mass, not halfe so good as Irish Boniclapper.” See also Gookin’s Indians, I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 153.
So also Roger Williams (Key, ch. ii. and iii.): “If any stranger came in, they presently give him to eat of what they have; many a time, and at all times of the night (as I have fallen in travel, upon their houses) where nothing hath been ready, have themselves and their wives, risen to prepare me some refreshing.”
“In Summer-time I have knowne them lye abroad often themselves, to make room for strangers, English, or others.”
“I have known them leave their House and Mat to lodge a friend or stranger, Where Jewes and Christians oft have sent Christ Jesus to the manger.”