Note 277 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN.

Roger Williams, also, in a passage just quoted (supra, 168, note), speaks of the future punishment supposed, among the New England Indians, to be allotted to thieves and liars. Josselyn, on the other hand, describes them as “very fingurative or theevish” (Two Voyages, p. 125); and Gookin says: “They are naturally much addicted to lying and speaking untruth: and unto stealing, especially from the English” (I. Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. i. p. 149). Winslow describes the severe punishments inflicted for theft (Young’s Chron. of Pilg., p. 364). Dodge, in his Wild Indians (pp. 63-5), explains this discrepancy in the authorities. He says: “All these authors are both right and wrong. In their own bands, Indians are perfectly honest.... It [theft] is the sole unpardonable crime among Indians.” He then describes, like Winslow, the severity of the punishments inflicted for thefts; “but,” he adds, “this wonderfully exceptional honesty extends no further than to the members of his immediate band. To all outside of it, the Indian is not only one of the most arrant thieves in the world, but this quality or faculty is held in the highest estimation.”