A Relation of the Cus­toms, Man­ners, Ab­surd­i­ties, and Re­li­gion of the S USQUEHANOCK (see note No. 46 ) I NDIANS in and near M ARY #NAME? AND.

AS the di­vers­i­ties of Lang­uages (since Babels con­fu­sion) has made the dis­tinc­tion between people and people, in this Christ­en­dom­part of the world; so are they dis­tin­guished Na­tion from Nation, by the di­vers­i­ties and con­fusion of their Speech and Languages (see note No. 47) here in America: And as every Nation dif­fers in their Laws, Manners and Customs, in Europe, Asia and Africa, so do they the very same here; That it would be a most intricate and laborious trouble, to run (with a description) through the several Nations of Indians here in America, considering the in­num­er­able­ness and di­vers­i­ties of them that dwell on this vast and un­measured Con­ti­nent: But rather then I’le be altogether silent, I shall do like the Painter in the Comedy, who being to limne out the Pour­trai­ture of the Furies, as they severally appeared, set himself behind a Pillar, and between fright and amazement, drew them by guess. Those Indians that I have convers’d withall here in this Province of Mary-Land, and have had any occular experimental view of either of their Customs, Manners, Religions, and Absurdities, are called by the {72} name of Susquehanocks, being a people lookt upon by the Christian Inhabitants, as the most Noble and Heroick Nation of Indians that dwell upon the confines of America; also are so allowed and lookt upon by the rest of the Indians, by a submissive and tributary acknowledgement; being a people cast into the mould of a most large and Warlike deportment, the men being for the most part seven foot high in latitude, and in magnitude and bulk suitable to so high a pitch; their voyce large and hollow, as ascending out of a Cave, their gate and behavior strait, stately and majestick, treading on the Earth with as much pride, contempt, and disdain to so sordid a Center, as can be imagined from a creature derived from the same mould and Earth.

Their bodies are cloth’d with no other Armour to defend them from the nipping frosts of a benumbing Winter, or the penetrating and scorching influence of the Sun in a hot Summer, then what Nature gave them when they parted with the dark receptacle of their mothers womb. They go Men, Women and Children, all naked, only where shame leads them by a natural instinct to be reservedly modest, there they become cover’d. The formality of Jezabels artificial Glory is much courted and followed by these Indians, only in matter of colours (I conceive) they differ.

The Indians paint upon their faces one stroke of red, another of green, another of white, and another of black, so that when they have accomplished the {73} Equipage of their Countenance in this trim, they are the only Hieroglyphicks and Representatives of the Furies. Their skins are naturally white, but altered from their originals by the several dyings of Roots and Barks, that they prepare and make useful to metamorphize their hydes into a dark Cinamon brown. The hair of their head is black, long and harsh, but where Nature hath appointed the situation of it any where else, they divert it (by an antient custom) from its growth, by pulling it up hair by hair by the root in its primitive appearance. Several of them wear divers impressions on their breasts and armes, as the picture of the Devil, Bears, Tigers, and Panthers, which are imprinted on their several lineaments with much difficulty and pain, with an irrevocable determination of its abiding there: And this they count a badge of Heroick Valour, and the only Ornament due to their Heroes. (See note No. 48).

These Susquehanock Indians are for the most part great Warriours, and seldom sleep one Summer in the quiet armes of a peaceable Rest, but keep (by their present Power, as well as by their former Conquest) the several Nations of Indians round about them, in a forceable obedience and subjection.

Their Government is wrapt up in so various and intricate a Laborynth, that the speculativ’st Artist in the whole World, with his artificial and natural Opticks, cannot see into the rule or sway of these Indians, to distinguish what name of Government to {74} call them by; though Purchas (see note No. 49) in his Peregrination between London and Essex, (which he calls the whole World) will undertake (forsooth) to make a Monarchy of them, but if he had said Anarchy, his word would have pass’d with a better belief. All that ever I could observe in them as to this matter is, that he that is most cruelly Valorous, is accounted the most Noble: Here is very seldom any creeping from a Country Farm, into a Courtly Gallantry, by a sum of money; nor feeing the Heralds to put Daggers and Pistols into their Armes, to make the ignorant believe that they are lineally descended from the house of the Wars and Conquests; he that fights best carries it here.

When they determine to go upon some Design that will and doth require a Consideration, some six of them get into a corner, and sit in Juncto; and if thought fit, their business is made popular, and immediately put into action; if not, they make a full stop to it, and are silently reserv’d.

The Warlike Equipage they put themselves in when they prepare for Belona’s March, is with their faces, armes, and breasts confusedly painted, their hair greased with Bears oyl, and stuck thick with Swans Feathers, with a wreath or Diadem of black and white Beads upon their heads, a small Hatchet, instead of a Cymetre, stuck in their girts behind them, and either with Guns, or Bows and Arrows. In this posture and dress they march out from their Fort, or {75} dwelling, to the number of Forty in a Troop, singing (or rather howling out) the Decades or Warlike exploits of their Ancestors, ranging the wide Woods untill their fury has met with an Enemy worthy of their Revenge. What Prisoners fall into their hands by the destiny of War, they treat them very civilly while they remain with them abroad, but when they once return homewards, they then begin to dress them in the habit for death, putting on their heads and armes wreaths of Beads, greazing their hair with fat, some going before, and the rest behind, at equal distance from their Prisoners, bellowing in a strange and confused manner, which is a true presage and forerunner of destruction to their then conquered Enemy. (See note No. 50).

In this manner of march they continue till they have brought them to their Berken City (see note No. 51) where they deliver them up to those that in cruelty will execute them, without either the legal Judgement of a Council of War, or the benefit of their Clergy at the Common Law. The common and usual deaths they put their Prisoners to, is to bind them to stakes, making a fire some distance from them; then one or other of them, whose Genius delights in the art of Paganish dissection, with a sharp knife or flint cuts the Cutis or outermost skin of the brow so deep, untill their nails, or rather Talons, can fasten themselves firm and secure in, then (with a most rigid jerk) disrobeth the head of skin and hair at one pull, leaving {76} the skull almost as bare as those Monumental Skelitons at Chyrurgions-Hall; but for fear they should get cold by leaving so warm and customary a Cap off, they immediately apply to the skull a Cataplasm of hot Embers to keep their Pericanium warm. While they are thus acting this cruelty on their heads, several others are preparing pieces of Iron, and barrels of old Guns, which they make red hot, to sear each part and lineament of their bodies, which they perform and act in a most cruel and barbarous manner: And while they are thus in the midst of their torments and execrable usage, some tearing their skin and hair of their head off by violence, others searing their bodies with hot irons, some are cutting their flesh off, and eating it before their eyes raw while they are alive; yet all this and much more never makes them lower the Top-gallant sail of their Heroick courage, to beg with a submissive Repentance any indulgent favour from their persecuting Enemies; but with an undaunted contempt to their cruelty, eye it with so slight and mean a respect, as if it were below them to value what they did, they courageously (while breath doth libertize them) sing the summary of their Warlike Atchievements.

Now after this cruelty has brought their tormented lives to a period, they immediately fall to butchering of them into parts, distributing the several pieces amongst the Sons of War, to intomb the ruines of their deceased Conquest in no other Sepulchre then {77} their unsanctified maws; which they with more appetite and desire do eat and digest, then if the best of foods should court their stomachs to participate of the most restorative Banquet. Yet though they now and then feed upon the Carkesses of their Enemies, this is not a common dyet, but only a particular dish for the better sort (see note No. 52) for there is not a Beast that runs in the Woods of America, but if they can by any means come at him, without any scruple of Conscience they’le fall too (Without saying Grace) with a devouring greediness.

As for their Religion, together with their Rites and Ceremonies, they are so absurd and ridiculous, that its almost a sin to name them. They own no other Deity than the Devil, (solid or profound) but with a kind of a wilde imaginary conjecture, they suppose from their groundless conceits, that the World had a Maker, but where he is that made it, or whether he be living to this day, they know not. The Devil, as I said before, is all the God they own or worship; and that more out of a slavish fear then any real Reverence to his Infernal or Diabolical greatness, he forcing them to their Obedience by his rough and rigid dealing with them, often appearing visibly among them to their terrour, bastinadoing them (with cruel menaces) even unto death, and burning their Fields of Corn and houses, that the relation thereof makes them tremble themselves when they tell it. {78}

Once in four years they Sacrifice a Childe to him (see note No. 53) in an acknowledgement of their firm obedience to all his Devillish powers, and Hellish commands. The Priests to whom they apply themselves in matters of importance and greatest distress, are like those that attended upon the Oracle at Delphos, who by their Magic-spells could command a pro or con from the Devil when they pleas’d. These Indians oft-times raise great Tempests when they have any weighty matter or design in hand, and by blustering storms inquire of their Infernal God (the Devil) How matters shall go with them either in publick or private. (See note No. 54).

When any among them depart this life, they give him no other intombment, then to set him upright upon his breech in a hole dug in the Earth some five foot long, and three foot deep, covered over with the Bark of Trees Arch-wise, with his face Du-West, only leaving a hole half a foot square open. They dress him in the same Equipage and Gallantry that he used to be trim’d in when he was alive, and so bury him (if a Soldier) with his Bows, Arrows, and Target, together with all the rest of his implements and weapons of War, with a Kettle of Broth, and Corn standing before him, lest he should meet with bad quarters in his way. (See note No. 55) His Kinred and Relations follow him to the Grave, sheath’d in Bear skins for close mourning, with the tayl droyling on the ground, in imitation of our English Solemners, {79} that think there’s nothing like a tayl a Degree in length, to follow the dead Corpse to the Grave with. Here if that snuffling Prolocutor, that waits upon the dead Monuments of the Tombs at Westminster, with his white Rod were there, he might walk from Tomb to Tomb with his, Here lies the Duke of Ferrara and his Dutchess, and never find any decaying vacation, unless it were in the moldering Consumption of his own Lungs. They bury all within the wall or Pallisado’d impalement of their City, or Connadago (see note No. 56) as they call it. Their houses are low and long, built with the Bark of Trees Arch-wise, standing thick and confusedly together. They are situated a hundred and odd miles distant from the Christian Plantations of Mary-Land, at the head of a River that runs into the Bay of ChÆsapike, called by their own name The Susquehanock River, where they remain and inhabit most part of the Summer time, and seldom remove far from it, unless it be to subdue any Forreign Rebellion.

About November the best Hunters draw off to several remote places of the Woods, where they know the Deer, Bear, and Elke useth; there they build them several Cottages, which they call their Winter-quarter, where they remain for the space of three months, untill they have killed up a sufficiency of Provisions to supply their Families with in the Summer.

The Women are the Butchers, Cooks, and Tillers of the ground, the Men think it below the honour of {80} a Masculine, to stoop to any thing but that which their Gun, or Bow and Arrows can command. The Men kill the several Beasts which they meet withall in the Woods, and the Women are the Pack horses to fetch it in upon their backs, fleying and dressing the hydes, (as well as the flesh for provision) to make them fit for Trading, and which are brought down to the English at several seasons in the year, to truck and dispose of them for course Blankets, Guns, Powder and lead, Beads, small Looking-glasses, Knives, and Razors. (See note No. 57).

I never observed all the while I was amongst these naked Indians, that ever the Women wore the Breeches, or dared either in look or action predominate over the Men. They are very constant to their Wives; and let this be spoken to their Heathenish praise, that did they not alter their bodies by their dyings, paintings, and cutting themselves, marring those Excellencies that Nature bestowed upon them in their original conceptions and birth, there would be as amiable beauties amongst them, as any Alexandria could afford, when Mark Anthony and Cleopatra dwelt there together. Their Marriages are short and authentique; for after ’tis resolv’d upon by both parties, the Woman sends her intended Husband a Kettle of boyl’d Venison, or Bear; and he returns in lieu thereof Beaver or Otters Skins, and so their Nuptial Rites are concluded without other Ceremony. (See note No. 58) {81}

Before I bring my Heathenish Story to a period, I have one thing worthy your observation: For as our Grammar Rules have it, Non decet quenquam me ire currentem aut mandantem: It doth not become any man to piss running or eating. These Pagan men naturally observe the same Rule; for they are so far from running, that like a Hare, they squat to the ground as low as they can, while the Women stand bolt upright with their armes a Kimbo, performing the same action, in so confident and obscene a posture (see note No. 59) as if they had taken their Degrees of Entrance at Venice, and commenced Bawds of Art at Legorne.