USA > Rhode Island > The lands of Rhode Island : as they were known to Caunounicus and Miantunnomu when Roger Williams came in 1636 : an Indian map of the principal locations known to the Nahigansets, and elaborate historical notes > Part 3
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21
. THEIR FOOD AND CLOTHING.
gives as being White, Black, Red, Yellow, Green ( which he spells with the final (e), and Blue. These we must consider as being the fundamental colors of today. The Indian had no knowledge of compounding the primary colors. The Narragansetts had an- other method of decorating their coats, "curiously made," Mr. Williams says, "of the fairest feathers of their Veyhommauog, or turkies." This ornamentation was not done by the women, but "commonly their old men make it ; and it is with them as Velvet is with us." "Within their skin or coat they creep contentedly, by day or night, in the house or in the woods, and sleep soundly, counting it a felicity, as indeed an earthly one it is, Intra pelliculam quemque tenere suam, that every man be content with his skin." Our word moccasin came from the Narragansett Indian word mocus- sinass, a shoe or shoes. These Indians made "both shoes and stockins from their worn out deer skins, which yet being excel- lently tanned by them, is excellent for to travel in wet and snow, for it is so well tempered with oil that water wrings out of it ; and being hanged up in their chimney, they presently drie without hurt, as I myself hath often proved. He continues: "Our English clothes are so strange unto them, and their bodies so inured to endure the weather, that when some of them have had English clothes, yet in a shower of rain I have seen them rather expose their skins to the wet than their clothes, and therefore put them off and keep them dry. While, however, they were amongst the English, they keep on the English apparel, but pull off all as soon as they come again into their own homes and company" ( Indian Key 143). There is among us a word. Nocake, meaning a kind of cake made of "Indian" meal; in the Southern States it is Hoe-cake: among the Narragansetts it was No'kehick, and was, as Mr. Williams says, "a readie and very wholesome food," which was made from corn, pounded, then parched, and then eaten "with a little water, hot or cold." Mr. Williams tells of a journey which he once made "with neere two hundred of them at once, neere one hundred miles through the woods, every man carrying a little basket of this (parched and pounded corn ) at his back, or sometimes in a hollow leather girdle about his middle, sufficient for a man three or four days ; with this ready provision and their bow and arrows they are ready for war
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22
THEIR DIVISION OF THEIR PROVISIONS.
or for travel at an hour's warning." Then continues Mr. Williams : "With a spoonful of this meal and a spoonful of water from the brook, have I made many a good dinner and supper." Samp is a name long given in New England to a kind of coarse Indian meal. It came from Narragansett Indian, Nasaump. They also ate the flesh of the deer, as also of many other animals. Fish of every kind, clams and every other shell-fish. Geese, Duck, Turkeys, and Fowls after the English came. Concerning the samp, of which the English had learned from the Indians, Mr. Williams says: "It may be caten hot or cold, with milk or butter, which are mercies beyond the natives' plain water, and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for English bodies." They were hospitable to everybody. Mr. Williams says. "Whomsoever cometh in when they are eating, they offer them to eat of that which they have, though but little enough prepared for themselves. If any provision (amount of ) fish or flesh come in, they make their neighbors partakers with them. If any stranger come 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, when nothing hath been ready, have themselves and their wives risen to prepare me some refreshing. It is a strange truth that a man shall generally find more free enter- tainment and refreshing amongst these Barbarians than amongst thousands that call themselves Christians" ( Indian Key 46).
Whenever they sleep, whether within or without their houses, they have a fire. This fire is to them their bedclothing, Mr. Williams says. "I have known them contentedly sleep by a fire, under a tree, when some of the English have, for want of familiarity and (of a knowledge of the) language with them, been fearful to enter- tain them. In summer time I have known them lie abroad, often themselves, to make room for strangers, English, or others." Having abundance of wood, they lay it on the Fire, "plentifully when they lie down to sleep whether in winter or summer; and so themselves and any who have occasion to lodge with them must be content to turn often to the fire if the night be cold, and they who first wake must repair the fire. Sweet rest is not confined to soft beds, for not only God gives his beloved sleep or hard lodgings, but Nature and custom also gives sound sleep to these Americans on the Earth, -
23
THEIR WILD PASSION FOR NEWS.
on a 'Boord' or on a Mat" ( Indian Key 49). Mr. Williams says : . "Their delight was in hearing the news," and that their desire for it was as great as was that of the Athenians; a stranger who can relate news in their own language, they will style him Manittoo, a god" ( Indian Key 82). In another place Mr. Williams relates a bit of personal experience which throws light on their insatiate passion for "news." He says: "I once traveled to an Island of the wildest in our parts. I was alone, having travelled from my Barke, the wind being contrary, and little could I speak to them to their understanding, especially because of the change of their Dialect, or manner of speech, from our neighbors ; yet so much, through the help of God, I did speak, of the True and Only Wise God; of the Creation ; of Man, and his fall from God, &c., that at parting many burst forth, 'Oh, when will you come again to bring us some further newes of this God?'" ( Indian Key 49). Their manner upon hearing the news was to sit round the speaker. Mr. Williams says, "I have seen a thousand in a round," and giving "deep silence and attention to him that speaketh." Many of them will de- liver themselves, either in a relation of news, or in a consultation, with very emphatical speech, and great action, commonly an hour, and sometimes two hours together. They are impatient, as all men, and God Himself is, when their speech is not attended, or listened to." One method of "encoring" a speaker, to-day, might well have been taken from these Indians, for it is quite as barbarous. They constantly flattered their Princes, and sometimes their common ora- tors, by shouting Coanaumwem-"You speak true"; or Wunnaum- waw ewo-"He speaks true". ( Indian Key 83.) Mr. Williams made a visit to "Martin's ( Martha's Vineyard", at some time before 1643 and it doubtless was the "Island" above referred to by him as visit- ing.
Having no horses, nor other beasts of burthen, their only mode of travel on land was on foot. Mr. Williams says, "It is admirable to see what pathis their naked hardened feet have made in the wilder- ness. in the most stony and rockie places." The wilderness being so vast. it is a mercy that for hire a man shall never want guides, who will carry provisions, and such as hire them. over the rivers, and brooks, and find out oftentimes hunting houses, or other lodgings, at
2.4
THE NARRAGANSETTS WERE GREAT HUNTERS.
night ; I have heard of many English being lost, and have oft been lost myself ; and myself and others have often been found and suc- coured by the Indians." They are generally quick on foot, brought up from the breasts to running ; their legs being also from birthi stretched and bound up in a strange way on their cradle backward. as also annointed ( Indian Key 98). This needs explanation, and it is to be found in this from Wood's New England Prospect ( Chap. 20, pt. 2). "The young infant being greased and sooted, wrapt in a Beaver skin with his feet up to his bumme, upon a board two feet long and one foot broad." Such were their cradles. "They were joyful in travel," Mr. Williams says, "in meeting any, and will strike fire either with stones, or sticks, to take tobacco, and discourse a little together. I have upon occasion travelled many a score, yea, many a hundredth mile amongst them, without need of a stick or staff. for any appearance of danger from them; yet it is a rule among them that it is not good for a man to travel without a weapon nor alone" (Indian Key 101).
The Narragansetts were great hunters of birds, Mr. Williams says, concerning Geese, Swans, Brant, and other Ducks, of which they have abundance upon their waters, which "they take great pains to kill with their Bow and arrows." Cormorants were very numerous. "These they take in the night time, when they are asleep on the rocks, off at sea, and bring in at break of day great store of them." They caught "many fowle upon the plains" when they went to feed "under okes upon akrons," such as Geese, Turkeys, Cranes and others. Wuskowhan, a wild Pigeon, was in certain seasons a great article of food for the Indian. The country at the north of Rhode Island, around Worcester, was known by a name meaning "Pigeon Country." The name Mr. Williams gives as Wuskowhannanauhit. He says : "In that place these 'fowle' breed abundantly, and by rea- son of their delicate food, especially in strawberriesime, when they pick up whole large fields of the old grounds of the natives. they are a delicate fowle, and because of their abundance and the facility of killing. they are and may be plentifully fed on." Curiously enough, the Narragansetts had a tradition which saved the lives of the crows. Scarcely one Indian in a hundred would kill them. This tradition was "that the crow brought them at first an Indian corn
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THEIR GREAT GOD KAUTANTOUWIT.
in one case, and an Indian or French Beane in another, from the Great God Kautantouwit's field in the southwest, from whence came all their corn and beans." The crows, even then, as under civiliza- tion they do now, "pulled" occasionally the young corn sprouts; blackbirds did the same. To overcome this habit of these birds to "follow the matinal seed," "the Indians are very careful both to set their corn deep enough that it may have a strong root, not so apt to be pluckt up, yet not too deep, lest they bury it, and it never come up." They also put up little watch houses in the middle of their fields in which they, or their biggest children, lodge, and carly in the morn- ing" frighten the birds away. Concerning beasts, Mr. William; makes this extraordinary contradiction ; he gives ( Indian Key 128) the word "Ockqutchaun-nug." which he says is "a wild beast of a reddish haire about the bigness of a pig, and rooting like a pig, from whence they give this name to all our swine." On the next page ( 129) Mr. Williams gives the Indian words Hogsuck and Pigsuck both as meaning swine, which he follows with this note: "This ter- mination suck is common in their language ; and therefore they add it to our English cattle, not else knowing what names to give them" ( Indian Key 129). Mr. Trumbull says, in a note ( 128), that the word Ockqutchaun-nug, which the Indians gave to an animal which rooted, was the Wood-chuck; but whoever heard of a woodchuck which rooted with its nose as a hog roots ; or of a hog which dug a hole into the earth with its feet as a woodchuck digs ?
Their knowledge of fruits and nuts covered the entire product. Chestnuts they used "for a daintie all the year." Mr. Williams said : "They have an art of drying and so preserve them in their 'barnes' for a daintie." Acorns they also dried, and by boiling "they make a good dish of them. They not only ate walnuts, but they also make from them 'an excellent oil,' good for many uses, but especially for their annointing of their hands." They used Wild Cherries, Grapes. Huckleberries, Barberries, Cranberries and Strawberries. Concern- ing the latter. Mr. Williams says: "This berry is the wonder of all the fruits, growing naturally in these parts. It is of itself excellent. So that one of the chiefest Doctors of England was wont to say that God could have made, but God never did make a better berry." Note .- Concerning this paragraph it has been attributed by a news-
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26
THE STRAWBERRY TO THE INDIAN.
paper here in Providence to Lyman Beecher, and also to Isaac Wal- ton. The first appearance of the paragraph was in the "Key to the Indian Language," by Roger Williams, published in 1643 in London, England. Mr. Williams did not state the name of the "chiefest Doctor" who wrote the paragraph, or possibly did not write, but orally uttered the remark. Thirteen years later, Walton published, in 1655, the second edition of the Complete Angler, in which he used this form "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." Mr. Walton gave the name of the author as "Dr. Boteler." This physician died in 1621. He was the author of no books. The question arises, where did Williams find the paragraph, the author of it having been dead upwards of twenty years, and known also to Walton twelve years later still.
Mr. Williams continues : "In some parts where the natives have planted I have many times seen as many as would fill a good ship within few miles compass. The. Indians bruise them in a morter and mix them with meal, and make Strawberry 'bread" ( Indian Key 121). In speaking of Hurtle-berries Mr. Williams says: "Of which there are divers sorts sweet like currants, some opening, some of a binding nature." "These currants are dried by the natives and so preserved all the year, which they beat to a powder and mingle it with their parcht meal, and make a delicate dish, which is as sweet to them as plum or spice cake is to the English." "When a field is to be broken up, they have a very loving, sociable, speedy way to despatch it. All the neighbors, men and women, Forty, Fifty, a Hundred, join and come in to help freely. With friendly joining they breake up their fields, build their Forts, hunt the woods, stop and kill fish in the rivers."
They planted seeds, which grew a Vine, which bore, what Mr. Williams calls "Their Vine Apples." The Indian name was Askutasquash. The English dropped the Askuta, but kept the squash, and thus came our English word. This vine apple Mr. Williams said was of several colors, and a sweet, light. whole- some refreshing" ( Indian Key 125). While Mr. Williams uses in his paragraphs the word canow, as meaning an Indian boat. vet the word, nor does the form canoe appear in his Indian vo- cabulary. The Narragansett word for a small boat was Mishoon.
27
THEIR CANOE BUILDING.
Concerning them Mr. Williams says, "I have seen a native go into the woods with his hatchet carrying only a basket of corn and stones to strike fire: when he had felled his tree (being a chestnut ) he made him a little house, or shed, of the bark of it : he puts fire, and follows the burning with fire, in the midst. in many places ; his corn he boils, and hath the brook by him, and some- times angles for a little fish ; but so he continueth burning and hewing until he hath, within ten or twelve days, lying there alone at his work finished; and, getting hands (assistance) launch his boat with which afterwards he ventures out to fish in the Ocean." The motive power was a paddle, but Mr. Williams says, "Their own reason hath taught them to pull off a coat or two and set it up on a small pole with which they will sail before a wind ten or twenty miles." (Indian Key 133).
Mr. Williams says, "It is wonderful to see them venture in their canoes, and how, being overset, as I have myself been with them, they will swim a mile, yea, two miles or more, safe to land. I have been necessitated to pass waters diverse times with them ; it hath pleased God to make them many times the instru- ments of my preservation. When sometimes in great danger I have questioned safety, they have said to me, 'Fear not. if we be overset. I will carry you safe to land.' " Mr. Williams men- tions a naval battle, "I have known thirty or forty of these canoes filled with men, holding some of them twenty, or thirty, or forty men, and near as many more (canoes) of their enemies in a Sea Fight :" and there he leaves the subject, so interesting as he might have made it. They ate everything in the way of fish and shell- fish which they could get. They used largely nets made from hemp, some of them exceedingly strong. They would place these nets across a little river, or a cove, and kill bass as the tide ebbed. with their arrows. "Of the head and brains and fat" of this fish, the Indians (and English too) make a dainty dish. But of all things else, the clam was their pure delight. Mr. Wil- liams says, "This is a sweet kind of shell-fish which all Indians generally over the country. winter and summer. delight in. At low water the women dig for them. This fish, and the natural liquor of it, they boil, and it makes thin broth and Nasaump (a
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28
THE MEANING OF MANITOU.
meal pottage), and thin bread seasonable and savory, instead of (for lack of) salt. The English swine dig and root these clams whenever they come, and watch the low water, as the Indian women do. Therefore of all the English cattle the swine are most hateful to all natives and they call them filthy cut-throats, etc." (Indian Key 140). It was to raise hogs that Mr. Williams bought the island Prudence : nearly all the smaller islands in the bay came to be used for that purpose. On these islands the pigs ran wild and were safe from wild animals.
Someone named Tylor defines in Webster's Dictionary the word "Manito" thus, "a name given by some tribes of American Indians, to a great spirit, whether good or evil, or to any object of worship." As giving collateral strength to his definition, Tylor cites, not Roger Williams, the highest of all authorities, but Henry W. Longfellow, who wrote only as a "Poet."
Someone named Bowker defines in Worcester's Dictionary the word "Manitou" thus, "the god of some tribes of the American Indians-an. idol."
These definitions are ambiguous, being open to sundry mean- ings in accord with the bias of those seeking to use them. They were written for English readers. To such, the words. "a great spirit", necessarily means a living force, life, vitality. But no such meaning was fixed in the Indian mind. I am writing here solely concerning the Narragansetts, the greatest of the Eastern tribes. Again, it was not a name given solely by the Indians to "any object of worship". As for the Bowker definition, it has no correctness so far as the Narragansetts were concerned. Roger Williams gives the word "Manit" as being the singular and meaning "a god" : "Manitto" as being in the plural, meaning "gods". Dr. J. H. Trumbull has translated the word "Manit" as meaning "that which surpasses. or, that which is extraordinary." (Indian Key, note 147). The correctness of this definition I pro- pose attempting to maintain. by the help of Roger Williams, believing with Trumbull, that the "authority (of Williams was) to say the least, as good as any or 'all the manuscripts' ". (Narragansett Club 1, 219). Mr. Williams says. "There is a general custom amongst them at the apprehension of any excel-
29
THEY HAD THIRTY-SEVEN GODS.
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1
lency in men, women, birds, beasts, fish, etc., to cry out "Manit- too": that is-it is a god-thus if they see one man excel others in wisdom, valor, strength, activity, etc., they cry out Manittoo, a god; and therefor when they talk among themselves of the English ships and great buildings, of the plowing of their fields, and especially of books and letters, they will end thus,-they are Gods." ( Indian Key, Narragansett Club, edition 150). Again, Mr. Williams says. "Their desire of, and delight in news, is as great as the Athenians, and all men, more or less; a stranger that can relate news in their own language they will style him "Manittoo", a god. (Indian Key, Narragansett Club, edition 82). Concerning this, Mr. Trumbull says, "The common use by the Indians of these words "Manit and Manittoo, and their applica- tion by 'general custom', to everything excellent or extraordinary hardly authorize the inference which Mr. Williams drew of a belief in an Omnipotent Deity." (Indian Key, note 151). It is clearly established by these things that the definitions cited above are not correct, at least so far as the Narragansetts are concerned. No member of this tribe ever worshipped an English ship nor any other idol. An English "great building" was not an Indian "great spirit" nor were such objects ever worshipped ; nor their making men Gods. I cannot accept the last fifteen words of Mr. Trumbull's note, to wit, "hardly authorize the in- ference which Mr. Willianis drew of belief in an Omnipresent Deity." Mr. Williams made no such inference nor can such an inference be drawn from his statement "Of their religion". (Chapter XXI, Indian Key). Mr. Williams says, "First, they branch their God-head into many Gods, and second, they attri- bute it to creatures." Concerning the first, he says, "They have given me the names of thirty-seven." In another place he said. 'I find what I could never hear before (this was in February 1637-8) that they have plenty of Gods, or divine powers", as for instance "the sun, moon. fire, water, snow, earth, the deer, the bear. etc. I brought home from the Nanhiggonsicks the names of thirty-eight of their Gods, all they could remember." ( Mass. Hist. Soc. Col. 4, Ser. 6, 225, also Narr. Club 1, 148). This num- ber was liable to an increase at any moment by contact with
30
NO CONVERSION TO A RELIGIOUS BELIEF POSSIBLE.
some extraordinary, and to them, incomprehensible force. Mr. Williams says, "All these Gods in their solemn worships they invocate." (Indian Key, 148). To invocate does not necessarily mean to worship in the English sense. "The power I will invoke lies in her eyes." (Sidney's Arcadia, London, 1590). Mr. Wil- liams could never have "inferred" an Omnipresent Deity as a belief of the Indians while having in his possession a list of thirty-eight Gods, one just as omnipresent as another. Of the names of these Gods, Mr. Williams has sent down to us exactly one dozen. The chiefest of them being "Kautantowwit", their great south-west God, to whose homes all souls go, and from whom came their corn and beans, as they say." (Indian Key, 149). It was a tradition as before written with them "that a crow brought them the first Indian corn and the first Indian bean (French bean, Mr. Williams puts it) from the Great God Kautantowwit's (sic) field in the South-west." (Indian Key, 114). Mr. Williams says, "They will generally confess that God made all; but these in special : nor do they deny that (the) Englishman's God made Englishmen, and the Heavens and (the) Earth there; yet their Gods made them, and the Heaven and Earth where they dwell." Creation then must have been, in the understanding of the Indians, the work of many Gods, neither one of whom could have been omnipotent. Among the Gods named by Mr. Williams, in English, are the Eastern, West- ern, Northern, Southern, House, Woman's, Children's, Sun, Moon, Sea and Fire. These Mr. Williams calls their fained (feigned) Deities ; "so worship they the creatures in which doth rest some Deity. supposing that Deities be in these," that he had named. (Indian Key, 150). "They conceive that there are many Gods, or Divine Powers, within the body of man, in his pulse, his heart, his lungs, etc." (Indian Key. 152). Even Deer they conceive have Divine power within them (190).
In his tract, "Christenings Make Not Christians" ( R. I. Hist. Tract 14). Mr. Williams demonstrates the impossibility of bring- ing a Narragansett Indian to a genuine conversion to the Christian religion. He says, "I could have brought the whole country to have observed one day in seven : I add to have re-
1
·
THE PRAYING INDIANS OF ELIOT.
31
ceived a baptism, or washing in rivers, and to have them come · to a stated church meeting, maintained priests and forms of prayers." * * * "Some may ask why hath these been such a price (prize) in my hand not improved? Why have 1 not brought them to such a conversion as I speak of? I answer woe be to me if I call light darkness, or darkness light, sweet bitter, or bitter sweet : woe be to me if I call that conversion unto God, which is indeed conversion of the souls of millions in christen- dom from one false worship to another. * * * It is not a suit of crimson satin will make a dead man live" ( R. I. Hist. Tract 14. pp. 11, 12). In the light of such a religious belief it becomes difficult to quite understand some things which Mr. Williams relates. An Indian whose child died at break of day went forth in lamentations, with abundant tears, "O God, thou hast taken away my child : thou art angry with me. O turn thine anger from me, and spare the rest of my children."' Again, if they have success in hunting, fishing, harvest, etc., they acknowledge God in it." (Indian Key, 148). This was written in 1643. Now ob- serve the effect of forty-three years of such praying upon the Indian character. Mary Rowlandson, the wife of a Massachu- setts clergyman, in 1675-6, was captured and carried into cap- tivity, and after three months redeemed with merchandise. She says, "A praying Indian wrote the letter for her Master, Quan- open : there was another praying Indian who told me that he had a brother that would not eat horse, his conscience was so tender and scrupulous, though as large. as hell for the destruction of poor Christians: another praying Indian, who, when he had done all the mischief that he could, betrayed his own father into the English hands, thereby to purchase his own life: another praying Indian was in the attack on Sudbury, though, as he was afterwards hanged as he deserved : there was another praying In- dian so wicked and cruel as to wear a string about his neck strung with the fingers of Christians." (Rowlandson's Narrative 41, 42). Such was the testimony of a Massachusetts Puritan clergyman's wife concerning the missionary work of Major Humphrey AAtherton and Captain Daniel Gookin. To the ever- lasting credit of the Narragansetts never were there such cases
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