The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its PeopleHaynie, Miriam
History
The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People
Haynie, Miriam
Northern Neck (Va.)
We can be certain that Henry avoided the hideous priests and their
temples and the houses where the bodies of the dead kings and statues of
their god Okee were kept. These places were considered too holy for
ordinary people to enter. Indians passed these houses quickly, and even
when going up or down the river they would throw "some peece of copper,
white beads or pocones into the river for feare their Okee should be
offended and revenged of them."
Henry attended funerals of the common people where he saw the body
wrapped in mats and placed on a scaffold ten or twelve feet high. The
relatives mourned greatly and threw beads among the poor. After the
funeral the relatives entertained with feasting, music and dancing.
The corpse stayed on the scaffold until the flesh had disappeared and
then it was wrapped in a new mat and later buried.
In the Potomac country punishment for crime was swift and often final.
Henry was an eye-witness to such punishment: "Then cam the officer to
thos that should dye, and with a shell cutt off ther long locke, which
they weare on the left side of ther heade, and hangeth that on a bowe
before the kings house. Then thos for murther weare beaten with staves
till ther bonns weare broken and beinge alive weare flounge into the
fier, the other for robbinge was knockt on the heade and beinge deade
his bodye was burnt."
The white boy saw many moons come and go there in the wilderness--the
moon of stags, the corn moon, the first and second moon of cohonks. He
was there at the budding of the spring, the earing of the corn, the
highest sun, the fall of the leaf, and then again--cohonks.
He witnessed the solemn celebrations of the plentiful coming of the wild
fowl to the river, the return of the hunting season and the ripening of
certain fruits. He saw the greatest annual festival at the time of the
corn gathering with its war dances, heroic songs, the music rattles and
drums, and then the feasting.
One day news came to the village of a boat with sails that was moving up
the river and stopping at the Indian settlements in quest of corn. The
white men sent from Jamestown by Lord De la Ware were ready to barter
copper, beads and other "trucke" for corn. While Henry had been dining
so well with the Indians his own people at Jamestown were starving.
As the boat neared the village of the Potomac Indians a messenger came
to the chief with word from the captain. Captain Samuel Argall had heard
that in the village there was an "English boy named Harry" and he
desired to "hear further of him."
King Patowmeke sent the boy to the ship where he conversed with Captain
Argall and then returned to the village with an invitation to the chief
to visit the ship. The chief accompanied the boy back to the ship.
The visit was pleasant and a deal was made between the chief and the
captain--the vessel was "fraughted with corne" and Henry was exchanged
for some copper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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