Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

The Story of Pocahontas by Charles Dudley Warner
page 43 of 47 (91%)
which he sent to England "was painted upon one side of a toadstool,
much like unto a deformed monster." And he adds: "Their priests,
whom they call Quockosoughs, are no other but such as our English
witches are." This notion I believe also pertained among the New
England colonists. There was a belief that the Indian conjurors had
some power over the elements, but not a well-regulated power, and in
time the Indians came to a belief in the better effect of the
invocations of the whites. In "Winslow's Relation," quoted by
Alexander Young in his "Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers," under
date of July, 1623, we read that on account of a great drought a fast
day was appointed. When the assembly met the sky was clear. The
exercise lasted eight or nine hours. Before they broke up, owing to
prayers the weather was overcast. Next day began a long gentle rain.
This the Indians seeing, admired the goodness of our God: "showing
the difference between their conjuration and our invocation in the
name of God for rain; theirs being mixed with such storms and
tempests, as sometimes, instead of doing them good, it layeth the
corn flat on the ground; but ours in so gentle and seasonable a
manner, as they never observed the like."

It was a common opinion of the early settlers in Virginia, as it was
of those in New England, that the Indians were born white, but that
they got a brown or tawny color by the use of red ointments, made of
earth and the juice of roots, with which they besmear themselves
either according to the custom of the country or as a defense against
the stinging of mosquitoes. The women are of the same hue as the
men, says Strachey; "howbeit, it is supposed neither of them
naturally borne so discolored; for Captain Smith (lyving sometymes
amongst them) affirmeth how they are from the womb indifferent white,
but as the men, so doe the women," "dye and disguise themselves into
DigitalOcean Referral Badge