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
Cutchashineánna? How many have you kild?
Nneesnneánna, I have kild two.
Shwinneànna, Three.
Nyowinneánna, Foure.
Npiuckwinneánna, Ten, &c.
Nneesneechecttashínneanna, Twentie.
Nummouashàwmen, I goe to set Traps.
Apè hana, Trap, Traps.
Asháppock, Hempe.
Masaûnock, Flaxe.
Wuskapéhana, New Traps.
Eataúbana, Old Traps.
Obs: They are very tender of their Traps, where they lie, and what
comes at them; for they say, the Deere (whom they conceive have a
Divine power in them) will soone smell and be gone.
Npunnowwâumen, I must goe to my Traps.
Nummíshkommin, I have found a Deere;
Which sometimes they doe, taking a Wolfe in the very act of his
greedy prey, when sometimes (the Wolfe being greedy of his prey)
they kill him: sometimes the Wolfe having glutted himselfe with the
one halfe, leaves the other for his next bait; but the glad Indian
finding of it prevents him.
And that wee may see how true it is, that all wild creatures, and
many tame, prey upon the poore Deere, (which are there in a right
embleme of Gods persecuted, that is, hunted people, as I observed in
the Chapter of Beasts according to the old and true saying:
_Imbelles Damæ quid nisi præeda sumus?_
To harmlesse Roes and Does
Both wilde and tame are foes.)
I remember how a poore Deere was long hunted and chased by a Wolfe,
at last (as their manner is) after the chase of ten, it may be more,
miles running, the stout Wolfe tired out the nimble Deere, and
seasing upon it kill’d; In the act of devouring his prey, two English
Swine, big with Pig, past by, assaulted the Wolfe, drove him from
his prey, and devoured so much of that poore Deere, as they both
surfeited and dyed that night.
The Wolfe is an Embleme of a fierce blood-sucking persecutor.
The Swine of a covetous, rooting worldling, both make a prey of the
Lord Jesus in his poore Servants.
Ncummóotamúck qun natóqus, The Wolfe hath rob’d me.
Obs: When a Deere is caught by the leg in a Trap, sometimes there it
lies a day together before the Indian come, and so lies a pray to the
ranging Wolfe, and other wild Beasts (most commonly the Wolfe) who
seaseth upon the Deere and Robs the Indian (at his first devouring)
of neere halfe his prey, and if the Indian come not the sooner, hee
makes a second greedie Meale and leaves him nothing but the bones,
and the torn Deereskins, especially if he call some of his greedy
Companions to his bloody banquet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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