“Not long after, early in a morning, a great fire was made in a long
house, and a mat spread on the one side as on the other; on the one
they caused him to sit, and all the guard went out of the house, and
presently came skipping in a great grim fellow, all painted over with
coale mingled with oyle; and many Snakes and Wesels skins stuffed with
mosse, and all their tayles tyed together, so as they met on the crowne
of his head in a tassell; and round about the tassell was a Coronet of
feathers, the skins hanging round about his head, backe, and shoulders,
and in a manner covered his face; with a hellish voyce and a rattle
in his hand. With most strange gestures and passions he began his
invocation, and environed the fire with a circle of meale; which done
three more such like devils came rushing in with the like antique
tricks, painted halfe blacke, halfe red: but all their eyes were painted
white, and some red stroakes like Mutchato's along their cheekes: round
about him those fiends daunced a pretty while, and then came in three
more as ugly as the rest; with red eyes and stroakes over their blacke
faces, at last they all sat downe right against him; three of them on
the one hand of the chiefe Priest, and three on the other. Then all with
their rattles began a song, which ended, the chiefe Priest layd downe
five wheat cornes: then strayning his arms and hands with such violence
that he sweat, and his veynes swelled, he began a short Oration: at
the conclusion they all gave a short groane; and then layd downe three
graines more. After that began their song againe, and then another
Oration, ever laying down so many cornes as before, til they had twice
incirculed the fire; that done they tooke a bunch of little stickes
prepared for that purpose, continuing still their devotion, and at
the end of every song and Oration they layd downe a sticke betwixt the
divisions of Corne. Til night, neither he nor they did either eate or
drinke, and then they feasted merrily, and with the best provisions they
could make. Three dayes they used this Ceremony: the meaning whereof
they told him was to know if he intended them well or no. The circle of
meale signified their Country, the circles of corne the bounds of the
Sea, and the stickes his Country. They imagined the world to be flat and
round, like a trencher, and they in the middest. After this they brought
him a bagge of gunpowder, which they carefully preserved till the
next spring, to plant as they did their corne, because they would
be acquainted with the nature of that seede. Opitchapam, the King's
brother, invited him to his house, where with many platters of bread,
foule, and wild beasts, as did environ him, he bid him wellcome: but not
any of them would eate a bit with him, but put up all the remainder in
Baskets. At his returne to Opechancanoughs, all the King's women and
their children flocked about him for their parts, as a due by Custome,
to be merry with such fragments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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