Some Of The Heathens Are So Very Poor, That They Have No Manner Of Cloaths,
Save A Wad Of Moss To Hide Their Nakedness.
These are either lusty
and will not work; otherwise, they are given to Gaming or Drunkenness;
yet these get Victuals as well as the rest, because that is common
amongst them.
If they are caught in theft they are Slaves till they repay
the Person, (as I mention'd before) but to steal from the English
they reckon no Harm. Not but that I have known some few Savages
that have been as free from Theft as any of the Christians.
When they have a Design to lie with a Woman, which they cannot obtain
any otherwise than by a larger Reward than they are able to give,
they then strive to make her drunk, which a great many of them will be;
then they take the Advantage, to do with them what they please,
and sometimes in their Drunkenness, cut off their Hair and sell it
to the English, which is the greatest Affront can be offer'd them.
They never value Time; for if they be going out to hunt, fish,
or any other indifferent Business, you may keep them in talk
as long as you please, so you but keep them in Discourse, and seem pleased
with their Company; yet none are more expeditious and safer Messengers
than they, when any extraordinary Business that they are sent about
requires it.
{Not pass over a Tree.}
When they are upon travelling the Woods, they keep a constant Pace,
neither will they stride over a Tree that lies cross the Path, but always
go round it, which is quite contrary to the Custom of the English,
and other Europeans. {Cut with a Knife how. A Knife of Reed.}
When they cut with a Knife, the Edge is towards them, whereas we
always cut and whittle from us. {Not left-handed.} Nor did I ever see
one of them left-handed. {Get Fire how.} Before the Christians
came amongst them, not knowing the Use of Steel and Flints,
they got their Fire with Sticks, which by vehement Collision,
or Rubbing together, take Fire. This Method they will sometimes practise now,
when it has happen'd thro' rainy Weather, or some other Accident,
that they have wet their Spunk, which is a sort of soft corky Substance,
generally of a Cinnamon Colour, and grows in the concave part of an Oak,
Hiccory, and several other Woods, being dug out with an Ax,
and always kept by the Indians, instead of Tinder or Touch-wood,
both which it exceeds. You are to understand, that the two Sticks
they use to strike Fire withal, are never of one sort of Wood,
but always differ from each other.
They are expert Travellers, and though they have not the Use
of our artificial Compass, yet they understand the North-point exactly,
let them be in never so great a Wilderness. One Guide is a short Moss,
that grows upon some Trees, exactly on the North-Side thereof.
{Indian Compass.}
Besides, they have Names for eight of the thirty two Points,
and call the Winds by their several Names, as we do; but indeed more properly,
for the North-West Wind is called the cold Wind; the North-East the wet Wind;
the South the warm Wind; and so agreeably of the rest. Sometimes it happens,
that they have a large River or Lake to pass over, and the Weather
is very foggy, as it often happens in the Spring and Fall of the Leaf;
so that they cannot see which Course to steer: In such a Case,
they being on one side of the River, or Lake, they know well enough
what Course such a Place (which they intend for) bears from them.
Therefore, they get a great many Sticks and Chunks of Wood in their Canoe,
and then set off directly for their Port, and now and then throw over
a Piece of Wood, which directs them, by seeing how the Stick bears
from the Canoes Stern, which they always observe to keep right aft;
and this is the Indian Compass by which they will go over
a broad Water of ten or twenty Leagues wide. They will find
the Head of any River, though it is five, six or seven hundred miles off,
and they never were there, in their Lives before; as is often prov'd,
by their appointing to meet on the Head of such a River, where perhaps,
none of them ever was before, but where they shall rendezvous exactly
at the prefixt time; and if they meet with any Obstruction,
they leave certain Marks in the Way, where they that come after
will understand how many have pass'd by already, and which way they are gone.
Besides, in their War Expeditions, they have very certain Hieroglyphicks,
whereby each Party informs the other of the Success or Losses
they have met withal; all which is so exactly perform'd
by their Sylvian Marks and Characters, that they are never at a Loss
to understand one another. Yet there was never found any Letters
amongst the Savages of Carolina; nor, I believe, among any other Natives
in America, that were possess'd with any manner of Writing or Learning
throughout all the Discoveries of the New-World. {Indians make Maps.}
They will draw Maps, very exactly, of all the Rivers, Towns, Mountains,
and Roads, or what you shall enquire of them, which you may draw
by their Directions, and come to a small matter of Latitude,
reckoning by their Days Journeys. These Maps they will draw
in the Ashes of the Fire, and sometimes upon a Mat or Piece of Bark.
I have put a Pen and Ink into a Savage's Hand, and he has drawn me
the Rivers, Bays, and other Parts of a Country, which afterwards
I have found to agree with a great deal of Nicety: But you must be very much
in their Favour, otherwise they will never make these Discoveries to you;
especially, if it be in their own Quarters.
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