“The very Indian boys can give To many stars their name, And know their course and therein do Excel the English tame.” A good description of the Indian home is furnished by Roger Williams. It consisted of long poles covered and lined with mats. Those on the inside were embroidered by the women and took the place of hangings. Mats often formed doors, too, though birch and chestnut bark and even English boards and nails were sometimes used for this purpose. A large opening in the middle of the house served as a chimney. “Two families will live comfortably and lovingly in a little round house of some fourteen or sixteen foot over.” The principal occupations of the Indian braves were hunting, fishing, trading, and the manufacture of canoes, bows and arrows. They raised some tobacco, but left the planting and tending of other crops wholly to their women folk. Tobacco was highly valued as a preventative against toothache. While the Indians generally bore torture uncomplainingly, a jumping tooth would make a coward of the bravest. Says Roger Williams, “The toothache is the only pain which will force their stout hearts to cry.” Canoes were fashioned from pine, oak and chestnut trees. After being felled, the trees were burned and hewed into shape. A single Indian working by himself in the forest could finish and launch his boat within ten or twelve days. Some of the larger canoes were big enough to hold thirty or forty men. That they were not always the safest craft for white men is shown by Roger Williams’ story: “It is wonderful to see how they will venture in those canoes, and how (being oft overset as I have myself been with them) they will swim a mile, yea, two or more, safe to land. I having been necessitated to pass waters divers times with them, it hath pleased God to make them many times the instruments of my preservation: and when sometimes in great danger I have questioned safety, they have said to me, ‘Fear not, if we be overset, I will carry you safe to land.’” As to food, parched meal seems to have been their main article of diet, mixed with either hot or cold water. A little basket of meal was commonly carried on the back or in a hollow leather girdle. This would last for three or four days. There was also natural food at hand, of which the Indians made good use. The strawberry was greatly prized. To quote from the “Key”: “This berry is the wonder of all the fruits growing naturally in those parts. In some parts where the natives have planted, I have many times seen as many as would fill a good ship within few miles’ compass. The Indians bruise them in a mortar and mix them with meal and make strawberry bread.” The natives were also very fond of a dish made of meal and dried currants ground to a powder which was “as sweet to them as plum or spice cake to the English.”