43. Indian Children at Home
BY JOHN FONTAINE (1715)
AFTER breakfast, I went down to the Saponey
Indian town, which is about a musket-shot from the fort. I
walked round to view it. It lies in a plain by the riverside.
The houses join all the one to the other, and altogether make
a circle. The walls are large pieces of timber, squared, and
sharpened at the lower end, which are put down two feet in
the ground, and stand about seven feet above the ground.
These posts are laid as close as possible the one to the other.
When they are all fixed after this manner, they make a roof
with rafters, and cover the house with oak or hickory bark,
which they strip off in great flakes, and lay it so closely that
no rain can come in.
Some Indian houses are covered in a circular manner, by
getting long saplings, sticking each end in the ground, and so
covering them with bark. For entering into this town or
circle of houses there are three ways or passages of about
six feet wide, between two of the houses. All the doors are
on the inside of the ring, and the ground is very level within,
making a place which is in common, for all the people to
divert themselves.
In the centre of the circle is a great stump of a tree. I asked
the reason they left that standing, and they informed me it
was for one of their head men to stand upon when he had
anything of consequence to relate to them, so that being
raised, he might the better be heard.
The Indian women bind their children to a board
that is cut after the shape of the child. two pieces at the bottom of
this board to tie the two legs of the child to. The head or top of the
board is round, and there is a hole through the top of it for a string
to be passed through, so that when the women tire of holding them, or
have a mind to work, they hang the board to the limb of a tree, or to a
pin in a post for that purpose. There the children swing about and
divert themselves, out of the reach of anything that may hurt them.
They are kept in this way till nearly two years old, which I believe is
the reason they are all so straight, and so few of them lame or
odd-shaped.
Their houses are pretty large, they have no garrets,
and no other light than the door, and that which comes from
the hole in the tap of the house, to let
out the smoke. They make their fires always in the middle of
the house. The chief of their household goods is a pot, and
they have also some wooden dishes and trays, which they
make themselves. They seldom have anything to sit upon,
but squat upon the ground. They have small divisions in
their houses to sleep in, which they make of mats made of
bullrushes.
They have bedsteads, raised about two feet from
the ground, upon which they lay bear and deer skins, and all
the covering they have is a blanket. These people have no
sort of tame creatures, but live entirely upon their hunting
and the corn which their wives cultivate. They live as lazily
and miserably as any people in the world.
Between the town and the river, upon the riverside, there are
several little huts built with wattles,[161]
in the form of an oven, with a small door in one end of it. These
wattles are plastered on the outside very closely with clay; they are
big enough to hold a man, and are called sweating-houses.
When they have any sickness, they get ten or twelve pebble
stones which they heat in the fire, and when they are red-hot
they carry them into these little huts. The sick man or
woman goes in with only a blanket, and they shut the door.
There they sit and sweat until they are no more able to
support it, and then they go out and immediately jump into
the water over head and ears, and this is the remedy they
have for all distempers.
To-day the governor sent for all the young boys, and they brought
with them their bows. He got an axe, which he stuck up, and made them
all shoot by turns at the eye of the axe, which was about twenty
yards distant. Knives and looking-glasses were the prizes for
which they shot, and they were very dextrous at this
exercise, and often shot through the eye of the axe. This
diversion continued about an hour
The governor then asked the boys to dance a war
dance, so they all prepared for it, and made a great ring. The
musician came and sat himself in the middle of the ring. All
the instrument he had was a piece of board and two small
sticks. The board he set upon his lap, and began to sing a
doleful tune; and by striking on the board with his sticks, he
accompanied his voice. He made several antic motions, and
sometimes shrieked hideously, which was answered by the
boys. As the men sung, so the boys danced all round,
endeavoring who could outdo the one the other in antic
motions and hideous cries, the movements answering in
some way to the time of the music. All that I could remark
by their actions was, that they were representing how they
attacked their enemies, and relating one to the other how
many of the other Indians they had killed, and how they did
it, making all the motions in this dance as if they were
actually in the action.
By this lively representation of their warring, one may see
the base way they have of surprising and murdering the one
the other, and their inhuman manner of murdering all the
prisoners, and what terrible cries they have, they who are
conquerors. After the dance was over, the governor treated
all the boys, but they were so little used to have a stomach
full, that they simply devoured their victuals. So this day
ended.
The next day after breakfast we assembled ourselves, and
read the Common Prayer. With us were eight of the Indian
boys, who answered very well to
the prayers, and understood what was read. After prayers we
dined, and in the afternoon we walked abroad to see the
land, which is well timbered and very good. We returned to
the fort and supped.
[[161]]
Wattles = small branches woven in and out.
