Anecdotes of the American Indians, illustrating their eccentricities of character
History
Anecdotes of the American Indians, illustrating their eccentricities of character
Indians of North America -- Anecdotes
The ground of the town having been marked out, Eliot advised the
Indians to surround it with ditches and a stone wall; gave them
instruments to aid these objects, and such rewards, in money, as
induced them to work hard. It was a strange and novel thing to see
these men of the wilderness, to whom a few months previous all
restraint was slavery, and their lakes and forests dearer than the
palaces of kings, submit cheerfully to this drudgery of bricks and
mortar—chief as well as serf; the very hands that were lately red with
slaughter, scooping the earth at the bidding of Eliot, from morn to
night. He soon had the pleasure of seeing Nonanetum completed.
The progress of civilization which followed, was remarkable for its
extent and rapidity: the women were taught to spin, and they soon found
something to send to the nearest markets all the year round: in winter
they sold staves, baskets, and poultry; in spring and summer, fish,
grapes, strawberries, &c.
In the mean while, he instructed the men in husbandry, and the more
simple mechanical arts: in hay-time and harvest, he went forth into the
fields with them. All this was not done in a day, for they were neither
so industrious nor so capable of hard labour as those who had been
accustomed to it from early life.
AN INDIAN FUNERAL AT NONANETUM.
At a funeral, on the 7th of October, 1647, a change in the usages
and prejudices of the Indians was evinced in a striking manner. The
deceased was a man of some consequence. Their custom had been to mourn
much for the dead, and to appear overcome with grief, especially when
the earth shrouded them from their sight. The departed was borne to
the grave on a light bier, and interred in a sitting posture; in his
hand was placed a calumet and some tobacco, that he might present the
ensigns of peace to the people of another world. If the corpse was
that of a warrior, his quiver full of arrows, a bow, and a hatchet,
were placed by his side, and also a little mirror, that he might see
how his face looked after passing through the region of death; and a
little vermilion to take away its extreme paleness. His was a bold
hand that could at once tear aside these loved usages, and make the
dust of the warrior of no more consequence than that of the meanest of
his followers. The cemetery of the new town was in the woods, and the
procession of all the inhabitants moved slowly beneath their shadow,
in deep and solemn silence, with the missionary at their head: no wail
was heard—no wild gush of sorrow. To estimate this sacrifice, it is
necessary to recur to the Indian belief, “that after death they should
go to a very fertile country, where they were to have many wives, and,
above all, lovely places for hunting:” often, no doubt, the shadowy
chase of the bear and the stag came on the dreams of the dying man;
and afterwards, beautiful women would welcome him, weary to his home.
When the dead was laid in the grave, Eliot read the funeral service
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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