A Key Into the Language of America, or an Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New-England: Together with Briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners, and Worships, &c. of the Aforesaid Natives, etc.Williams, Roger
History
A Key Into the Language of America, or an Help to the Language of the Natives in That Part of America Called New-England: Together with Briefe Observations of the Customes, Manners, and Worships, &c. of the Aforesaid Natives, etc.
Williams, Roger
Narragansett Indians; Narragansett language
Kekíneash nippêtunck, Looke here in my bag.
Nummâche maúganash, I have already paid.
Mat coanaumwaûmis, You have not kept your word.
Kunnampatôwinkeénowwin, You must pay it.
Machàge wuttamaûntam, He minds it not.
Machàge wuttammauntammôock, They take no care about paying.
Michéme notammaûntam, I doe alwayes mind it.
Mat nickowêmennaûkocks, I cannot sleepe in the night
for it.
_Generall Observations of their Debts._
It is an universal Disease of folly in Men to desire to enter into
not onely necessary, but unnecessary and tormenting debts, contrary
to the command of the only wise God: Owe nothing to any man, but that
you love each other.
More particular
I have heard ingenuous Indians say,
In debts, they could not sleepe;
How far worse are such English then,
Who love in debt to keepe?
If Debts of pounds cause restlesse nights
In trade with man and man,
How hard’s that heart that millions owes
To God, and yet sleepe can?
Debts paid, sleep’s sweet, sins paid Death’s Sweet,
Death’s night then’s turned to light;
Who dies in sinnes unpaid, that soule
His light’s eternall night.
CHAP. XXVII.
_Of their Hunting, &c._
Wee shall not name over the severall sorts of Beasts which we named
in the Chapter of Beasts.
The Natives hunt two wayes: First, when they pursue their game
(especially Deere, which is the generall and wonderfull plenteous
hunting in the Countrey:) I say, they pursue in twentie, fortie,
fiftie yea, two or three hundred in a company, (as I have seene) when
they drive the woods before them. Secondly. They hunt by Traps of
severall sorts, to which purpose after they have observed, in spring
time and Summer, the haunt of the Deere, then about Harvest, they goe
ten or twentie together, and sometimes more, and withall (if it be
not too farre) wives and children also, where they build up little
hunting houses of Barks and Rushes (not comparable to their dwelling
houses) and so each man takes his bounds of two, three, or foure
miles, where he sets thirty, forty or fiftie Traps, and baits his
Traps with that food the Deere loves, and once in two dayes he walkes
his round to view his Traps.
Ntauchaûmen, I goe to hunt.
Ncáttiteam weeyoùs, I long for Venison.
Auchaûtuck, Let us hunt.
Nowetauchaûmen, I will hunt with you.
Anúmwock, Dogs.
Kemehétteas, Creepe.
Pitch nkemehétteem, I will creepe.
Pumm púmmoke, Shoote.
Uppetetoúa, A man shot accidentally.
Ntaumpauchaúmen, I come from hunting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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