The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation — Volume 12: America, Part IHakluyt, Richard
History
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation — Volume 12: America, Part I
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English; Voyages and travels
[Sidenote: Traffique with some other nation vnknowen.] They vse to traffike
and exchange their commodities with some other people, of whom they haue
such things as their miserable Countrey, and ignorance of Art to make,
denieth them to haue, as barres of yron, heads of yron for their darts,
needles made foure square, certaine buttons of copper, which they vse to
weare vpon their forehads for ornament, as our Ladies in the Court of
England doe vse great pearle.
[Sidenote: Gold.] Also they haue made signes vnto vs, that they haue seene
gold, and such bright plates of mettals, which are vsed for ornaments
amongst some people with whom they haue conference.
We found also in their tents a Guiny Beane of redde colour, the which doth
vsually grow in the hote Countreys: whereby it appeareth they trade with
other nations which dwell farre off, or else themselues are great
trauellers.
[Sidenote: Their fewell.] They haue nothing in vse among them to maker fire
withall, sauing a kinde of Heath and Mosse which groweth there.
[Sidenote: How they make fire.] And they kindle their fire with continuall
rubbing and fretting one sticke against another, as we doe with flints.
They drawe with dogges in sleads vpon the yce, and remooue their tents
therewithall wherein they dwell in Sommer, when they goe a hunting for
their praye and prouision against Winter. [Sidenote: Their kettles and
pannes.] They doe sometime parboyle their meat a little and seeth the same
in kettles made of beast skins; they haue also pannes cut and made of
stones very artificially; they vse prety ginnes wherewith they take foule.
The women carry their sucking children at their backes, and doe feede them
with raw flesh, which first they do a little chaw in their owne mouths. The
women haue their faces marked or painted ouer with small blewe spots: they
haue blacke and long haire on their heads, and trimme the same in a decent
order. The men haue but little haire on their faces, and very thinne
beards. For their common drinke, they eate yce to quench their thirst
withall. [Sidenote: The people eate grasse and shrubs.] Their earth
yeeldeth no graine or fruit of sustenance for man, or almost for beast to
liue vpon: and the people will eate grasse and shrubs of the ground, euen
as our kine doe. They haue no wood growing in their Countrey thereabouts,
and yet wee finde they haue some timber among them, which we thinke doth
growe farre off to the Southwards of this place, about Canada, or some
other part of New found land: for there belike, the trees standing on the
cliffes of the sea side, by the waight of yce and snow in Winter
ouercharging them with waight, when the Sommers thaw commeth aboue, and the
Sea vnderfretting beneath, which winneth dayly of the land, they are
vndermined and fall downe from those cliffes into the Sea, and with the
tydes and currents are driuen to and fro vpon the coastes further off, and
by conjecture are taken vp here by these Countrey people, to serue them to
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