others presented me with feveral parcels of land: the pay, or prefents I made them, were not hoarded by the particular owners, but the neighbouring kings and their clans being prefent when the goods were brought out, the parties chiefly concerned confulted what, and to whom they should give them. To every king then, by the hands of a perfon for that work appointed, is a proportion fent, fo forted and folded, and with that gravity, that is admirable. Then that king fubdivideth it in like manner among his dependents, they hardly leaving themselves an equal fhare with one of their fubjects and be it on fuch occafions as feftivals, or at their common meals, the kings distribute, and to themselves laft. They care for little, because they want but little, and the reafon is, a little contents them in this they are fufficiently revenged on us; if they are ignorant of our pleasures, they are also free from our pains. They are not difquieted with bills of lading and exchange, nor perplexed with chanceryfuits and exchequer reckonings. We fweat and toil to live their pleasure feeds them; I mean their hunting, fishing, and fowling, and this table is fpread every where they eat twice a day, morning and evening; their feats and table are the ground. Since the Europeans came into these parts, they are grown great Jovers of ftrong liquors, rum efpecially; and for it exchange the richeft of their fkins and furs. If they are heated with liquors, they are reftlefs till they have enough to fleep, that is their cry, Some more, and I will go to fleep; but, when drunk, one of the most wretched fpectacles in the world.

XX. In fickness, impatient to be cured, and for it give any thing, efpecially for their children, to whom they are extremely natural: they drink at those times a teran, or decoction of fome roots in fpringwater; and if they eat any flesh, it must be of the female of any creature. If they die, they bury them with their apparel, be they man or woman, and the nearest of kin fling in fomething precious with them,

as

as a token of their love: their mourning is blacking of their faces, which they continue for a year: they are choice of the graves of their dead; for left they fhould be loft by time, and fall to common ufe, they pick off the grafs that grows upon them, and heap up the fallen earth with great care and exactnefs.

XXI. These poor people are under a dark night in things relating to religion, to be fure the tradition of it; yet they believe a GOD and immortality, without the help of metaphyficks; for they fay, There is a 'great king that made them, who dwells in a glorious country to the fouthward of them; and that the fouls of the good fhall go thither, where they shall live again.' Their worship confifts of two parts, facrifice and cantico: their facrifice is their first-fruits; the first and fatteft buck they kill goeth to the fire, where he is all burnt, with a mournful ditty of him that performeth the ceremony, but with fuch marvellous fervency, and labour of body, that he will even fweat to a foam. The other part is their cantico, performed by round dances, fometimes words, fometimes fongs, then fhouts, two being in the middle that begin, and by finging, and drumming on a board, direct the chorus: their poftures in the dance are very antick, and differing, but all keep measure. This is done with equal earneftnefs and labour, but great appearance of joy. In the fall, when the corn cometh in, they begin to feast one another: there have been two great feftivals already, to which all come that will: I was at one myself; their entertainment was a great feat by a spring, under fome fhady trees, and twenty bucks, with hot cakes of new corn, both wheat and beans, which they make up in a square form, in the leaves of the ftem, and bake them in the afhes; and after that they fall to dance. But they that go muft carry a small prefent in their money, it may be fix-pence, which is made of the bone of a fish; the black is with them as gold, the white, filver; they call it all wampum.

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XXII.

XXII. Their government is by kings, which they call Sachama, and those by fucceffion, but always of the mother's fide: for inftance, the children of him that is now king, will not fucceed, but his brother by the mother, or the children of his fifter, whofe fons (and after them the children of her daughters) will reign, for no woman inherits: the reafon they render for this way of descent, is, that their iffue may not be fpurious.

XXIII. Every king hath his council, and that confifts of all the old and wife men of his nation, which perhaps is two hundred people; nothing of moment is undertaken, be it war, peace, felling of land or traffick, without advifing with them; and, which is more, with the young men too. It is admirable to confider, how powerful the kings are, and yet how they move by the breath of their people. I have had occafion to be in council with them upon treaties for land, and to adjust the terms of trade: their order is thus: the king fits in the middle of an half moon, and hath his council, the old and wife on each hand; behind them, or at a little distance, fit the younger fry, in the fame figure. Having confulted and refolved their business, the king ordered one of them to speak to me; he ftood up, came to me, and in the name of his king faluted me, then took me by the hand, and told me, He was ordered by his king to fpeak to me; and that now it was not he, but the king that spoke, because what he should say, ⚫ was the king's mind.' He firft prayed me, To excufe them that they had not complied with me the laft time; he feared there might be fome fault in the interpreter, being neither Indian nor English; befides, it was the Indian custom to deliberate, and take up much time in council, before they refolve; and that if the young people and owners of the land had been as ready as he, I had not met with fo much delay.' Having thus introduced his matter, he fell to the bounds of the land they had agreed to

difpofe

difpofe of, and the price; which now is little and dear, that which would have bought twenty miles, not buying now two. During the time that this perfon spoke, not a man of them was observed to whisper or fmile; the old grave, the young reverent in their deportment: they fpeak little, but fervently, and with elegance: I have never feen more natural fagacity, confidering them without the help, (I was going to fay, the spoil) of tradition; and he will deferve the name of wife, that out-wits them in any treaty about a thing they understand. When the purchase was agreed, great promises paffed between us of kindness and good neighbourhood, and that the Indians and English muft live in love, as long as the fun gave light.' Which done, another made a fpeech to the Indians, in the name of all the fachamakers or kings; first to tell them what was done; next, to charge and command them To love the Chriftians, and particularly live in peace with me, and the people under 'my government: that many governors had been in the river, but that no governor had come himself to live and stay here before; and having now fuch an C one that had treated them well, they fhould never 'do him or his any wrong.' At every fentence of which they shouted, and said, Amen, in their way.

XXIV. The juftice they have is pecuniary: in cafe of any wrong or evil fact, be it murther itself, they atone by feasts, and presents of their wampum, which is proportioned to the quality of the offence or perfon injured, or of the fex they are of: for in cafe they kill a woman, they pay double, and the reason they can render, is, That the breedeth children, which 'men cannot do.' It is rare that they fall out, if fober; and if drunk, they forgive it, faying, It was the drink, and not the man, that abused them.'

XXV. We have agreed, that in all differences between us, fix of each fide fhall end the matter: do not abuse them, but let them have justice, and you win them: the worst is, that they are the worse for

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the

the Christians, who have propagated their vices, and yielded them tradition for ill, and not for good things. But as low an ebb as these people are at, and as glorious as their own condition looks, the Christians have not outlived their fight, with all their pretenfions to an higher manifeftation: what good then might not a good people graft, where there is fo diftinct a knowledge left between good and evil? I befeech God to incline the hearts of all that come into these parts, to outlive the knowledge of the natives, by a fixed obedience to their greater knowledge of the will of God; for it were miferable indeed for us to fall under the just cenfure of the poor Indian confcience, while we make profeffion of things fo far tranfcending.

XXVI. For their original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish race; I mean, of the stock of the Ten Tribes, and that for the following reafons; first, they were to go to a "land not planted or known,” which, to be fure, Afia and Africa were, if not Europe; and He that intended that extraordinary judgment upon them, might make the paffage not uneafy to them, as it is not impoffible in itself, from the eastermoft parts of Afia, to the westermost of America. In the next place, I find them of like countenance, and their children of fo lively a resemblance, that a man would think himself in Duke's-place or Buryftreet in London, when he feeth them. But this is not all, they agree in rites, they reckon by moons; they offer their first-fruits, they have a kind of feast of tabernacles; they are faid to lay their altar upon twelve ftones; their mourning a year, customs of women, with many things that do not now occur.

So much for the natives; next the old planters will be confidered in this relation, before I come to our colony, and the concerns of it.

XXVII. The first planters in these parts were the Dutch, and foon after them the Swedes and Finns, The Dutch applied themselves to traffick, the Swedes and Finns to husbandry. There were fome disputes

between