Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe: Founder of the Colony of Georgia, in North America.Harris, Thaddeus Mason
History
Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe: Founder of the Colony of Georgia, in North America.
Harris, Thaddeus Mason
Georgia -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Oglethorpe, James Edward, 1696-1785
The Indians are a manly, well-shaped race. The men tall, the women
little. They, as the ancient Grecians did, anoint with oil, and expose
themselves to the sun, which occasions their skins to be brown of
color. The men paint themselves of various colors, red, blue, yellow,
and black. The men wear generally a girdle, with a piece of cloth
drawn through their legs and turned over the girdle both before and
behind, so as to hide their nakedness. The women wear a kind of
petticoat to the knees. Both men and women in the winter wear mantles,
something less than two yards square, which they wrap round their
bodies, as the Romans did their toga, generally keeping their arms
bare; they are sometimes of woolen, bought of the English; sometimes
of furs, which they dress themselves. They wear a kind of pumps, which
they call moccasons, made of deer-skin, which they dress for that
purpose. They are a generous, good-natured people; very humane to
strangers; patient of want and pain; slow to anger, and not easily
provoked, but, when they are thoroughly incensed, they are implacable;
very quick of apprehension and gay of temper. Their public conferences
show them to be men of genius, and they have a natural eloquence, they
never having had the use of letters. They love eating, and the English
have taught many of them to drink strong liquors, which, when they do,
they are miserable sights. They have no manufactures but what each
family makes for its own use; they seem to despise working for hire,
and spend their time chiefly in hunting and war; but plant corn enough
for the support of their families and the strangers that come to visit
them. Their food, instead of bread, is flour of Indian corn boiled,
and seasoned like hasty-pudding, and this called hommony. They also
boil venison, and make broth; they also roast, or rather broil their
meat. The flesh they feed on is buffalo, deer, wild turkeys and other
game; so that hunting is necessary to provide flesh; and planting for
corn. The land[1] belongs to the women, and the corn that grows upon
it; but meat must be got by the men, because it is they only that
hunt: this makes marriage necessary, that the women may furnish corn,
and the men meat. They have also fruit-trees in their gardens, namely,
peaches, nectarines, and locust, melons, and water-melons, potatoes,
pumpkins, onions, &c. in plenty; and many kinds of wild fruits, and
nuts, as persimons, grapes, chinquepins, and hickory nuts, of which
they make oil. The bees make their combs in the hollow trees, and the
Indians find plenty of honey there, which they use instead of sugar.
They make, what supplies the place of salt, of wood ashes; use for
seasoning, long-pepper, which grows in their gardens; and bay-leaves
supply their want of spice. Their exercises are a kind of
ball-playing, hunting, and running; and they are very fond of dancing.
Their music is a kind of drum, as also hollow cocoa-nut shells. They
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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