Hidden in a dense forest on the banks of the Pamunkey, was Uttamussac, the greatest temple in Powhatan's kingdom. In every territory governed by a "werowance" there were smaller temples and priests. Each of the petty rulers under the great emperor had his spiritual adviser—some priest or conjurer, wise in the sacred mysteries and beloved of the gods, from whose decisions in spiritual matters there was no appeal. According to the wealth of the werowance were the size and dignity of the temple, varying from a small arbour of twenty feet to a structure a hundred feet long. The door opened to the east, and there were pillars and windings within, with rude black images looking down the church to the platform of reeds; upon which, wrapped in skins, lay the skeletons of dead priests and kings. Beneath the platform, veiled with a mat of woven grasses, sat "Okeus," an ill-favoured black demon, well hung with chains of pearl and copper. He it was to whom children must be sacrificed, lest he blight the corn, or cause briers to wound the feet and limbs of travellers through the forests, or enemies to prevail, or women to be barren or false, or thunder and lightning to destroy. He it was who had been seen leaping through the corn-fields, crying "OhÉ! OhÉ!" just before some signal disaster. There was also a far-away, peaceable God, variously known as "Ahone" or "Kiwassa"—"The One All Alone." He too had once walked among them. Are there not gigantic footprints five feet apart on the rocks yet visible near Richmond at Powhatan? These are the footprints of the good god as he once strode through the land of the great chief. To him it was, of course, unnecessary to sacrifice, inasmuch as he was by nature benevolent. But he was not as powerful as Okeus—Okeus, who sternly held the scales of justice, and was to be placated by nothing short of their dearest and best, their precious, innocent little children.

The pious men who emigrated to Virginia within the first twenty years of its settlement firmly believed that Satan had here established his kingdom; that the priests were his ministers, inspired by him to threaten the people unless they held to the ancient customs of their fathers. It was remembered that in all ages of the world this arch-enemy of mankind had demanded human sacrifice from his followers,—from the times of the ancient Carthaginians, Persians, and Britons. Now, in Florida, he claimed the first-born male child, and in Mexico prisoners taken in war. The priests of Powhatan failed not to instruct the werowances that if the prescribed number of children were withheld, Okeus, who was sure to prevail in the end, would then be appeased only by a hecatomb of children. Nor would any sacrifice avert his wrath if a nation despising the ancient religion of their forefathers was permitted to inhabit among them, since their own god had hitherto preserved them and from age to age given them victory over their enemies.

The conversion, therefore, of the Indian was next to impossible, unless indeed the first step could be the destruction of priest and temple. Chanco and Pocahontas, and possibly Kemps, were for many years the only fruits of the labours of the missionaries. Taunted by the powers at home with this fact, the colonists retorted that they had sent many Indians to England, not one of whom returned converted to Christianity. The Indian chief Pepisco was long an object of hope at Jamestown, because of his apparently candid willingness to believe in the God of the Christian; but the utmost he could attain was a belief that the Indian gods were suitable for the Indian, but that the greater nation needed the greater God, for whose good offices he was willing to entreat through the white man.

Had the fate of the Indian been to live in peace and friendship with his white brother to this day, it is not probable he would have ever been at heart a Christian. Druidism long survived, though in obscurity and decay, the thunder of the imperial edicts. It did more than survive in Ireland—it flourished until the fifth century, when it fell before the Christian enthusiasm of St. Patrick. Long after the Druidical priesthood was extinct, Druidical superstitions, Druidical rites, were dear to the common people. Nor will they become utterly extinct until we cease to gather the mistletoe and forget the sports and pastimes at Hallowe'en.

So grim and mysterious was the principal temple at Uttamussac on the Pamunkey, that the trembling Indian in his canoe hurried past it with bated breath, solemnly casting into the waters pieces of the precious copper, puccoon, and strings of pearls. In this temple, and in two others beside it, were images of devils, and upon raised platforms the swathed skeletons of their greatest kings. The place was so holy that none but priests entered it. There they questioned Okeus and received verbal answers.

The chief priest and his assistants wore a sacred official robe ornamented with serpent skins. Their faces were painted in the most frightful devices they could imagine. Their heads were wreathed, Medusa-like, with stuffed serpents, and in their hands they carried rattlesnakes' tails, as symbols of their profession. Their devotion was in antiphonal chants or songs, led by the chief priest, and often interrupted by his starts, passionate gestures, and ejaculations. At his every pause the attending priests groaned a sort of fearsome "amen." We may fancy the Indian on dark nights hurrying past with muffled paddle as the weird songs and groans were borne by the midnight breeze to his trembling ears!

They held the belief, common with all mankind, of the immortality of the soul, of the home—ah! in all faiths, so far away—of the escaped spirit. But this immortality was the reward only of the faithful. All others passed into utter nothingness.

Many fables were taught by the priests to the ignorant. Captain Argall was once trading with Japazaws, a Potomac chief who had been always friendly, and the latter came aboard the pinnace one cold night, and seated himself by the fire while one of the men read the Bible aloud to the Captain. "The Indian gave a very attent eare, and looked with a very wisht eye upon him as if he longed to understand what was read, whereupon the Captayne tooke the booke, and turned to the picture of the Creation of the World in the begyninge of the booke, and caused a boy, one Spelman who had lvyed a whole yere with this Indian Kinge and spake his language, to shewe it unto him and interpret it in his language which the boy did." The king, in return, offered to relate his own articles of belief on the same subject, and a string of marvellous exploits followed in which a wonderful hare, an Indian "Brer Rabbit," bore the chief part. Captain Argall instructed his interpreter to ask of what materials the original man and woman were made, but Henry Spelman was unwilling to venture so much. Negotiations were pending for his release after a long residence with the Indians, and he dared take no liberties.

The persistent enmity of Powhatan to the English was planted long before their arrival in 1608. Strachey and Purchas, men of high character and great learning, consider it absolutely certain that he ordered the massacre of both of the Roanoke colonies. He was said, in 1610, to be more than eighty years old. He had been a daring, ambitious ruler in his youth, perpetually on the war-path, enlarging his dominions by conquest,—like Alexander, only quiet when there were no more worlds to conquer. He "awaits his opportunity (inflamed by his bloudy priests)," says Strachey, "to offer us a tast of the same cuppe which he made our poore countrymen drink of at Roanoke. He has established a line of sentinels, extending from Jamestown to any house where he holds his court, and news of any movement by the English ships quickly passes from one to another and reaches him wherever he happeneth to be. He is persuaded that the English are come to dethrone him and take away his land."

Prophecies had been made by the priests that a nation would come from the East which would destroy him and his empire, that twice he should thwart and overthrow the strangers, but the third time he would fall under their subjection. This then was the fateful third! "Strange whispers and secrett, ran among the people. Every newes or blast of rumour struck them, to which they would open wyde their eares, and keepe their eyes waking with good espiall of everything that sturred; the noyse of drums, the shrill trumpets and great ordinances would startle them how far soever from the reach of daunger. Suspicions bredd straunge feares amongst them, and those feares created straunge construccions, and those construccions begatt strong watch and gard especially about their great Kinge, who thrust forth trusty skowtes and carefull sentinells (as before mencyoned) which reached even from his owne court down to our palisado gates, which answeared one another duly."

The Indian, as we have noted, knew not how to express himself by any kind of letters, by writing, or marks on trees, or pictures, as do other barbarians. They had no positive laws, their king ruling only by custom. His will was law. He was obeyed as a king and as a god. Traditional laws and rules were well understood by his successors, for the descent was not from father to son, but all the sons of one kingly father ruled successively, then all the daughters, so the children of one father were long the sole custodians and interpreters of the laws. The succession was through the heirs of the sisters, not through the men of the family. The ruling of the great Powhatan was most tyrannous, the punishment for trifling faults cruel to an extreme. He personally superintended the beating, the burning alive, the dismembering of those who displeased him.

The habitations of the Indians were all alike. They had but one style of architecture. They usually built upon an elevation commanding a view of their only thoroughfare, the river, and not far from springs of fresh water. They built under the trees, for defence against winds and storms and the scorching heat of the summer sun. They planted young saplings in the earth and tied their tops together, covering all closely with the bark of trees.

Until the middle of the nineteenth century, beautiful arbours of fragrant cedar were constructed after the Indian fashion as ornamental features in Virginia landscape gardening—omitting the bark, and shaving close the green foliage.

The walls of the Indian houses were lined with mats. A doorway was hung with a skin or mat. There were no windows or chimneys. A hole in the roof provided for the escape of the smoke from the fire kept burning immediately beneath it. An old writer remarks that they were "somewhat smoaky"! There was no furniture of any kind in these rude huts. All around, in the best houses, ran a low arrangement of poles, forming the sides of the sleeping-bunks, and within, on skins and mats, lay the household of twenty or more, men, women, and children. One was detailed to watch and replenish the fire while the rest slept. If more light was needed, it was provided from a pile of resinous sticks—their only candle or lamp. In these huts they lived all winter, cooking and working on their household utensils and various articles of dress. They had no needles or pins, no knives except sharpened reeds, yet they managed with strips of deerskin to sew skins together for leggings and moccasins, embroider them with pearl or shells, hollow the wooden blocks into bowls, and weave mats from grass. Powhatan's favourite wife, Winganuskie, and the Princess Pocahontas had no better home than this in winter. Pocahontas knew no other except during the few years of her married life, and of her captivity before it.

The men spent their time in hunting and fishing and in warfare and manly sports. In time of peace, they exercised in out-of-door games. They played "bandy" with crooked sticks, "an auncient game," says Strachey, who indulged abundantly in the parole of literary men, "as yt seemeth in Virgil, for when Æneas came into Italy at his marriage with Lavinia, yt is said the Trojans taught the Latins scipping and frisking with a ball." The Indians also played a game described as "a forcible encounter with the foot to carry a ball the one from the other, and spurne yt to the goale with a kind of dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honour of yt; yet they never strike up on another's heeles as we doe, not accompting that praiseworthie to purchase a goale by such an advantage."

All the domestic labour was performed by the poor drudging women and the children. They also cleared the ground for their gardens and cornfields, planted corn, beans, pumpkins, "maracocks," and gourds, and kept the growing plants free from weeds. They pounded the corn in wooden mortars for bread, sifting it through baskets, and boiling the coarse refuse for hominy. They dressed all the food and served it. They were also barbers for their husbands, using two oyster-shells to grate away beard and hair.

Henry Spelman, an English boy who was sold to an Indian chief, lived as a servant for many years among the savages. He relates an incident of domestic life in the household of the king of Paspetanzy, who "went to visitt another king, and one of his wives after his departure would goe visitt her father, and she willed me to goe with hir and take hir child and carye him thither in my armes, being a long days journey from the place where we dwelt, which I refusing she strook me 3 or 4 blows." This it appears was too much for the free-born Briton. "I gott to hir and puld hir downe, giving hir some blows agayne which the other King's wives perseyvinge they fell on me and beat me so as I thought they had lamed me." It appears the lady's filial intentions were not carried out, the heavy child being quite too much for her strength. All awaited the return of the king, and the indignant Henry boldly told his side of the story. There had been quarrels and fights before in the king's household, and he knew how to deal with them. The remedy was at hand. Taking up a "paring iron" he struck his wife and felled her to the ground, whereupon Henry, by no means sure upon whom the instrument of domestic discipline would fall next, fled to a neighbour's house and hid. His position was a perilous one, his fate uncertain. The Indian baby settled the question. Henry had been an affectionate nurse and perhaps bedfellow to the little pappoose, who now lifted up his voice in loud lamentations, howling for his white friend until midnight. The king was weary and longed for sleep. Search was made for Henry, and at midnight the child was sent to him, as he says "to still; for none could quiet him so well as myself."

The king, having had a good night's rest, was up early next morning to interview Henry, and to assure him that no evil intent was cherished against him, that his "Queene" was all right, that everybody loved him, and none should hurt him; his Majesty content, as we all can understand, to eat a good bit of humble-pie rather than lose a good nurse! "I was loth to goe with him," says Henry, "and at my cumminge the Queene looked but discontentedly at me, but I had the Kinge's promise and cared ye less for others frownes." There is something very pathetic in the boy's narrative. He was the son of an eminent scholar, Sir Henry Spelman, but, impatient of restraint, had run away from a comfortable English home, and here he was in the great wilderness, soothing the hunger of his heart in the companionship of a savage baby.

The Indian knew no means of providing for the future, except the husbanding, in great baskets, of his corn, drying persimmons on hurdles and oysters on strings. He never herded wild cattle or tamed the wild turkeys. Each season Nature brought of her abundance to these her untutored children, fish, game, fruits, melons, and in the hardest times acorns and roots. When famine seemed imminent, they would migrate in great companies to hunt the deer, the women going before, bearing on their backs mats, household utensils, skins for bedding, and even poles for the temporary huts. They would stake out the camp and make all ready for the men. Then in leisure hours the young maidens, round, pretty creatures with small hands and feet, would freshly paint themselves a brilliant red, and seated at the door of the sylvan arbour watch the young braves,—heavy, thick-lipped, thick-nosed fellows, but active and straight-limbed; magnificent and terrible in skins decorated with the dried hands of their enemies, claws of beasts and birds; and with green and yellow snakes thrust alive through their ears,—while they practised shooting arrows at a mark. The straightest, surest marksman would find no trouble in winning the prettiest maiden. Pretty maidens, all the world over, have realized that they needed game, furs, pearls, and copper. The arrow won them in 1607 as surely as a coup in Wall Street or in trade wins them in 1907. The comment of our historian seems to us as reasonable as it is quaint: "Every man in tyme of hunting will strive to doe his best, for thereby they wyn the loves of their women, who will be sooner contented to live with such a man by the readyness and fortune of whose bow they perceave they are likely to be fedd well, especially of fish and flesh; for indeed they be all of them huge eaters, and these active hunters by their continuall ranging and travell do know all places most frequented and best stored with deare or other beasts, fish, fowle, roots, fruits, and berries."

The Indians, like all barbarous people, danced to some kind of metrical sound, either from a cane on which they piped as on a "recorder," or drums stretched over hollow bowls or gourds, or rattles contrived from shells. These accompanied the voice in "frightful howlings." They had also "amorous ditties," and scornful songs inspired by their hatred of the English. The historian Strachey gives a copy, in the Indian language, of one of these, of four stanzas,—not rhyming but metrical, in which they not only exult over the men they had killed in spite of our guns, but they tell how Newport had never deceived them for all his presents of copper and the crown for Powhatan; and how they had continued to kill and take prisoners, "Symon" and others, for all their bright swords and tomahawks, ending each verse with the chorus or cry, "Whe, whe! yah, ha, ha! Tewittawa Tewittawa!" expressive of scornful, mocking exultation.

The Indian women, unless frantically insane from revenge, were tender and gentle, especially to children. George Percy witnessed one of the horrible sacrifices, when the women themselves with tears and lamentations gave their babes up to the priests. The dead children were cast in a heap in a valley, and the poor women returned, singing a funeral dirge and weeping most bitterly. They were faithful, poor souls, to the instincts of nature. Surely life held small compensation for them. A nurse was once captured, and ordered to reveal the hiding-place of her foster-child, now her mistress, or suffer death. She chose the latter, and her mistress escaped. Vindictive and merciless as was Powhatan, he had his tender emotions and even caressing words for his daughters.

But for the massacre of 1622 much might have been said in praise of the Indian. That event proved that no kindness, no confidence, could eradicate his deep-rooted hatred of the white man. For years he kept the secret of the promised universal butchery, and rose as one man at the appointed hour. He gloated over the mangled corpses, insulting, spurning, and mutilating them, sparing none, not even the devoted missionary, Thorpe, who was giving to their welfare, comfort, and instruction all his life and energy. That massacre settled the fate of the Virginia Indian, and yet to a Virginia Indian the colony at Jamestown was indebted for its preservation. Chanco, whose master "treated him as a son," was visited on the eve of the massacre by his own brother, with whom he slept that night. The dreadful secret of the impending slaughter of every white man, woman, and child was confided to Chanco, with the command of the chief as to his own part therein. He was to rise at daybreak and not later than eight in the morning murder his master and all his household! The brother then went on his way with similar orders to the Indians residing near the settlers. Chanco immediately awoke his master, and warning was given in time to save Jamestown.