After a few days the natives came off in boats to visit them, proper
people and civil in their behavior, bringing with them the King's
brother, Granganameo (Quangimino, says Strachey). The name of the King
was Winginia, and of the country Wingandacoa. The name of this
King might have suggested that of Virginia as the title of the new
possession, but for the superior claim of the Virgin Queen. Granganameo
was a friendly savage who liked to trade. The first thing he took a
fancy was a pewter dish, and he made a hole through it and hung it about
his neck for a breastplate. The liberal Christians sold it to him for
the low price of twenty deer-skins, worth twenty crowns, and they
also let him have a copper kettle for fifty skins. They drove a lively
traffic with the savages for much of such “truck,” and the chief came
on board and ate and drank merrily with the strangers. His wife and
children, short of stature but well-formed and bashful, also paid them
a visit. She wore a long coat of leather, with a piece of leather about
her loins, around her forehead a band of white coral, and from her
ears bracelets of pearls of the bigness of great peas hung down to her
middle. The other women wore pendants of copper, as did the children,
five or six in an ear. The boats of these savages were hollowed trunks
of trees. Nothing could exceed the kindness and trustfulness the Indians
exhibited towards their visitors. They kept them supplied with game and
fruits, and when a party made an expedition inland to the residence of
Granganameo, his wife (her husband being absent) came running to the
river to welcome them; took them to her house and set them before
a great fire; took off their clothes and washed them; removed the
stockings of some and washed their feet in warm water; set plenty of
victual, venison and fish and fruits, before them, and took pains to
see all things well ordered for their comfort. “More love they could
not express to entertain us.” It is noted that these savages drank wine
while the grape lasted. The visitors returned all this kindness with
suspicion.
They insisted upon retiring to their boats at night instead of lodging
in the house, and the good woman, much grieved at their jealousy, sent
down to them their half-cooked supper, pots and all, and mats to cover
them from the rain in the night, and caused several of her men and
thirty women to sit all night on the shore over against them. “A more
kind, loving people cannot be,” say the voyagers.
In September the expedition returned to England, taking specimens of the
wealth of the country, and some of the pearls as big as peas, and
two natives, Wanchese and Manteo. The “lord proprietary” obtained the
Queen's permission to name the new lands “Virginia,” in her honor, and
he had a new seal of his arms cut, with the legend, Propria insignia
Walteri Ralegh, militis, Domini et Gubernatoris Virginia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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