We might suppose these last words applied to the women, instead of to Powhatan, did we not know how little state and majesty were allowed these copper-colored Griseldas. The Indian squaws were little more than slaves. When the braves moved, it was the squaws who carried the wigwams and set them up in the new camp. When the men sat at meals, they spread the mats, waited upon their masters, and finally contented their appetites with the remnants of the feast. In the field, too, they bore the brunt of the toil: "Let squaws and hedgehogs scratch the ground," said an old warrior; "man was made for war and the chase." Yet, wretched and abused as these women were, they seemed content with their lot, and when their husbands died, they not only mourned for them, but seemed quite ready to enter the same servitude with a new master. "I once saw a young widow," said Jefferson, "whose husband, a warrior, had died about eight days before, hastening to finish her grief, and who, by tearing her hair, beating her breast, and drinking spirits, made the tears flow in great abundance in order that she might grieve much in a short space of time, and be married that evening to another young warrior." Spelman, a Virginia adventurer who, in the course of one of his exploring trips, witnessed an Indian wedding, has left us an account of the ceremony. "Ye man," he says, "goes not unto any place to be married, but ye woman is brought to him where he dwelleth. At her coming, her father or cheefe frend ioynes the hands togither, and then ye father, or cheefe frend of the man, bringeth a longe string of beades and, measuringe his armes leangth thereof, doth breake it over ye handes of those that ar to be married while their handes be ioyned together and gives it unto ye woman's father or him that brings hir. And so, with much mirth and feastinge they go togither." This "longe string of beades" of which Spelman spoke, was probably made of the _peak_ and _roanoke_, which made the riches of the Indian, and served him at once for money and ornament. Both were made from shell--one dark, the other white. The darker was the more valuable, and was distinguished as _wampum_ peak. The English traders accepted it as coinage, and reckoned its value at eighteen pence a yard, while the white peak sold for ninepence. In the proceedings of the Maryland Council we find Thomas Cornwaleys licensed to trade with the Indians for corn, roanoke, and peak.