33. ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH IN VIRGINIA

The plate, entitled 'The arriual of the Englishemen in Virginia', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). It represents a map of the coast of North Carolina, oriented to the west, showing part of Pamlico Sound, Roanoke Island, the mouth of Albemarle Sound and the Alligator River, and part of Currituck Sound with the Carolina Outer Banks, divided into six islands. The mainland, at the top, on the left, is named SECOTAN with, on the shore, an enclosed Indian village, Dasamonquepeuc, cornfields and conventionalized trees. The other side of Albemarle Sound, top right, is named WEAPEMEOC, with an enclosed village, Pasquenoke, near the water's ed ge, fields of maize and similar trees with the addition of grapevines. In the centre, left, Roanoke Island has an enclosed village, Roanoac, with maize fields at the right-hand end (north-east). Indians with bows and arrows are shownemerging from the village against an attacking party, and further to the left, amongst the trees, which are shown over much of the island, is a deer being stalked by an Indian with bow and arrow. Below, a fish-weir extends into the sound. Numerous small islands are shown off the upper and left coastline (south shore) of Roanoke, and on the sounds are a number of fishing canoes (several are also seen in Albemarle Sound). A shoal is indicated across the mouth of Albemarle Sound and extends into Currituck Sound. Along the edge of the shoal an English pinnace is shown making its way towards Roanoke Island. She has three pairs of oars and a steering oar, a flag with the cross of St George at the masthead, while perhaps ten figures are shown standing and seated. The islands of the Carolina Outer Banks extend across the middle of the engraving (from south to north), the name Hatorasck being given to the first island or the first opening. All five openings are marked by shoals, the third being named Trinety harbor. The islands are shown as moderately well-wooded. Conventionalized wrecks (bowsprit and masts appearing above the water) are shown off each of the five inlets through the Banks. Along the bottom, out at sea, a sea monster is shown and two English ships at anchor, the larger on the left.

15.7 x 22.7 cm. or 6 1/8 x 9 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. II.

Literature: Quinn, pp. 413-15, no. 32.

Although there is no original drawing for this engraving it is close to the sketch of September, 1585, illustrated above (p. 53, fig. I). It combines the features of the chart and the bird's-eye view and represents a compilation from some of the field sketches made by Hariot and White in their partnership in mapping the area, the final stage of which was the map (no. 111, pl. 59). See also Quinn, pp. 846-7.

The right half of the sketch, roughly corresponding to the area shown in the engraving, represents a very much less-developed stage in the knowledge of the area but a few features are carried over into the engraving, for example the site of the village of 'Pasquenoke' and the occurrence of grape-vines in 'Weapemeoc'. The use of conventionalized drawings of trees as characteristic signs on the map shows that White was following a similar procedure to that laid down for Thomas Bavin in 1582 (see pp. 34-5). Features not found elsewhere include the location of the village on Roanoke Island and, apparently, the channel from 'Trinety harbor' inlet to Roanoke Island.

The text is said by De Bry to have been provided by Thomas Hariot for the Latin edition and to have been translated by Richard Hakluyt for the English edition. It describes the arrival of Amadas and Barlowe with the first expedition in July 1584. White was apparently present on this occasion but did not then make the drawing from which De Bry engraved his plate, while Hariot was not on this voyage. The text describes an entry through the Outer Banks by way of 'Trinety harbor' towards the northern end of Roanoke Island as shown in the engraving. The Indians are said to have raised a great outcry at the sight of the Englishmen but to have been brought to friendly terms by offers of trade. This does not agree with Barlowe's account but an attempt to reconcile the two is made above (p. 3; cf. Quinn, pp. 413-15).

34. VILLAGE OF POMEIOOC

A bird's-eye view of an Indian village enclosed by a circular palisade of quite irregular light poles, with two entrances, one in the foreground and one in the background at bottom and top left.

The path leading to the front entrance is bordered with hooped sticks. The village consists of eighteen buildings of pole and mat (and perhaps bark) construction, many of them with open ends or sides or both, and some with door openings at the ends, usually off-centre. Most are rectangular in ground-plan, but some may have rounded ends. Several are seen to contain an interior platform along one or both sides and across one end, supported by two rows of posts independent of the house posts. All have simple arched roofs, except the largest, where the cupola-like roof is constructed on ridges springing from the corners and coming to a point in the centre. In three houses the open sides seem to be shaded by an arched section of roof supported on longer vertical poles. The houses are grouped irregularly about a large open space in the centre where a fire is burning and around which a number of apparently naked Indians are sitting with rattles in their hands (see no. 43 (A), pl. 39). Other groups of men, women and children are seen standing or walking near the houses, several of them making signs with their hands towards the fire and one man is splitting timber with an axe, another is carrying wood on his back, yet another carries a bow, while a cloaked figure is dimly seen emerging from a house to the left of the fire. A dog with longish legs and tail is also shown.

Yellow, crimson and gold body-colours, various shades of brown and grey water-colours, touched with black, over black lead; 22.2 x 21.5 cm. or 8 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.

Inscribed in brown ink, at the foot, "The towne of Pomeiock and true forme of their howses, couered | and enclosed some wth matts, and some wth barcks of trees. All compassed | abowt wth smale poles stock thick together in stedd of a wall."

1906-5-9-I (8), L.B. I(7), C-M. & H. 32.

Literature: Quinn, p. 415, no. 33 (a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 40, no. 32, pl. 31.

OFFSET

The colour has been detached fairly evenly and thinly, the black tints being represented strongly and the brown lightly. The crimson on the cloaked figure emerging from the house is strong and makes the figure in the original rather shadowy.

P. & D., 199.a.2, L.B. 2 (7).

The drawing is much larger and clearly from a different version of the original. Outside the stockade, in the top right-hand corner, is a group of three ponds (apparently dug for drinking water) beside which two Indians with bows are standing. Down the right-hand side and along the top are fields of sketchily indicated fully grown maize, and showing at top left a path cut through the stalks. On the left-hand side a field of sprouting maize is shown. The entrances into the stockade and the path to the one in the foreground are as in the original, though the poles and stakes are somewhat shorter. The foreground is bare soil except for a few conventionalized plants growing in the lower right-hand corner. There is an area of widely but regularly spaced conventionalized plants. The houses (nineteen, not eighteen) are disposed similarly to those in the original, but there are many differences in detail, of which the most striking is that a large house, immediately behind the fire, with a curving roof rising to a central point, and apparently with a hexagonal ground-plan, is shown open. A man and a woman, perhaps intended to represent the chief and his wife, are sitting on benches inside, each with arms extended, probably waving rattles. The logs of the central fire project from it like spokes and the figures round the fire are more widely spaced and are clothed. There are a few people dispersed among the houses, the man with the dog and the one carrying wood not being represented. A naked figure carrying a baby is added to the right foreground. The matting along the centre of the curved roofs seems to have been laid over the constructional matting and usually hangs down in flaps over the ends. The colour and markings of the walls of the large building with a cupola-like roof suggest panels of bark, rather than the mat covering of the other buildings.

Pen and brown ink and crimson body-colour, yellow, light blue, greyish and various shades of brown watercolours, touched or heightened with black, over black lead outlines; within a border, 33.6 x 46.2 cm. or 13 1/4 x 18 1/8 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, above the border, "POMEIOOC "

P. & D., 199.a.3 (formerly Sloane MS. 5270), ff. 2 v. and 3 r., L.B. 3 (I).

Literature: Quinn, p. 416, no. 33 (b) (as 'without inscription'); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 61.

C. COPY FROM B

B.M., Dept. of MSS., Add. (formerly Sloane) MS. 5253, no. 14.

The plate, entitled 'The Tovvne of Pomeiooc', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). There are few important variations in the village itself, but the rear entrance to the palisade is missing, its poles are larger, more regular, and considerably taller, and the house with the cupola is shown with a hexagonal ground-plan. The Indians differ as to numbers and occupations only to a minor degree. A landscape background has been added, of trees, part of a cornfield on the left, sunflowers and a small pond on the right, from which three Indians are taking water. This last feature relates the engraving more closely to the lost variant from which (B) was made. Two of these Indians are using hemispherical vessels with loop handles (not shown elsewhere) to dip and carry water. The plate also shows a ridge in the foreground with plants growing on it.

29.5 x 22.6 cm. or 11 5/8 x 8 3/4 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. XIX.

Literature: Quinn, p. 416, no. 33 (c); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 40, no. 32.

We can locate this village between the present Lake Landing and Wyesocking Bay. ¹ Hariot's caption notes that the palisade poles were not very strong and that the entrance (he mentions only one) was very narrow. The houses, he says, were those of 'the kinge and his nobles'. The large building with cupola shown in all three versions is identified as the temple 'couered with skynne matts', and with a door (which is not shown). The largest house (so shown in (A) and (D) but not (B)) is identified as that of the 'king'. Some houses are said to be covered with mats which are turned up as desired to let in light, and others (not shown) with 'boughes of trees'. The pond of the engraved version was dug, according to Hariot, to serve as a source of water.

The 1585 sketch-map of Raleigh's Virginia ² (p. 53, fig. I) indicates Pomeiooc with a conventionalized representation of a palisade with one overlapping entrance. Hariot describes Carolina Algonkian palisades consisting merely of close-set upright poles, and Barlowe says that the Indian village of Roanoke was fortified with sharp stakes with an 'entrance into it made like a turne pike very artificially'. ³ Palisaded villages were not unusual (although not universal) in this and neighbouring regions as Mook ⁴ has shown. The illustration of Secoton (no. 38 (B), pl. 135) and Hariot's caption thereto, indicate that unpalisaded towns were also present among the Carolina Algonkians. Stewart, after analysing the historical and archaeological evidence, suggests that palisades may have been more common among the Carolina Algonkians than among their Virginia relatives. ⁵ Willoughby has summarized the historical evidence for palisades in New England, noting that while the smaller ones had a single entrance, larger towns had palisades with two entrances, on opposite sides; the dimensions of many of these palisaded towns were also comparable with those shown for Pomeiooc. ⁶ However, these descriptions confirm one's suspicion that while the sizes of the poles drawn by White are approximately correct, he has shown them too widely spaced--evidently to allow the enclosed scene to be shown easily. A summary of the distribution of palisades in the north-east is given by Flannery, and in the south-east by Swanton. ⁷ The New England Algonkian descriptions sound more like White's depiction than do most of the others, many of which pertain to much stronger and more complex arrangements than were seen in coastal North Carolina.

For the houses, we have a short description by Harlot of Carolina Algonkian houses constructed of small poles bent and fastened together at the top (see no. 41 for the method of lashing), covered usually with bark, sometimes with rush mats, with floor plans ranging from 36 feet by 18 feet to 72 feet by 36 feet; the proportions of White's largest house can be calculated at 30:15:25 (length:breadth:height). ⁸ There is one reference to a house at Roanoak with five rooms, ⁹ but nothing comparable is shown by White. It is noteworthy that there is no mention of smoke holes here, nor do any of White's houses have them; yet Beverley's modification of this illustration shows them, following his text, ¹⁰ and they are mentioned in the earlier accounts of the Powhatan ¹¹ as well as in many other regions where comparable houses occurred. It is possible that movable small mats were used in Carolina to cover the smoke holes, as they were for the mat-covered southern New England and Menomini houses, ¹² and that these were in place during the summer when White probably made his drawings--but White draws no such small mats on the roofs, nor does he show any fires or fire pits within the houses with the siding removed. ¹³

Most of the houses shown by White here and elsewhere can be classified as longhouses--markedly longer than they are broad. There are a few, especially in (B) above, which approach the domed, oval or round, mat-covered houses known in New England and the Great Lakes region and elsewhere. ¹⁴ Perhaps both forms occurred, as they did in New England. ¹⁵ White's peculiar cupolas and arched roofsections are apparently without parallels. Both the domed round or oval houses and the longhouses were evidently here at or near their southern limits. The appearance and descriptions agree well with houses of the Powhatan and the groups from there north to above the St Lawrence River, while to the south and south-west house types were different. The most southerly longhouse so far known archaeologically is one near Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna River, which measures some 92 feet by 24 feet. ¹⁶

The small platforms along the interior walls of the houses were primarily sleeping benches, as Beverley remarks of those in his version of this illustration. He describes them as platforms of boards, sticks or reeds, on forked posts, covered with mats or skins. ¹⁷ This agrees well with other descriptions for the Powhatan, and for many of the tribes of the south-east. ¹⁸ Barlowe tells of food being served on these benches at Roanoke. ¹⁹

The hemispherical vessels shown for dipping and carrying water are too small for clear determination, but they perhaps represent gourds with open tops and loop handles, such as Speck reports for the modern Pamunkey and Mattaponi of Virginia. ²⁰

Unfortunately the axe used for chopping wood is indistinct in form, although in (B) it seems to be triangular in outline. Hariot mentions axes of 'gray stone like unto marble' used by these Indians for chopping wood. Holmes noticed the illustration, but evidently missed Hariot's remark, since he suggested that this may have been an English trade axe. It has been pointed out that suitable stone does not occur in this region, although a stone axe apparently predating the English settlement was found during recent archaeological work at Roanoke Fort. ²¹

The illustration of the dog is important, small and indistinct though it is. Study of American Indian varieties of dogs is dependent almost entirely on archaeological skeletal evidence, since the earliest descriptions are generally inadequate, and later descriptions and illustrations are unreliable evidence because crossing with European dogs must have begun almost immediately on contact, and the results may have spread ahead of the advancing exploration and settlement. ²² Given White's accuracy and the unlikelihood of European influence on Indian dogs this early, the illustration is important for what it shows of the non-osteological traits of the animal. The variety may be Allen's 'Small Indian Dog or Techichi'; ²³ the illustration apparently shows a solid brown dog about the size of a fox, with short hair, long snout, a rather long raised tail, and perhaps prick ears.

1 See pl. 123 (a) and Quinn, pp. 416-17, 870 and map.

2 Quinn, pp. 215-17.

3 Quinn, pp. 107, 369.

4 M. A. Mook, 'The ethnological significance of Tindall's map of Virginia, 1608', William and Mary Quarterly, 2nd s., vol. XXIII (1943) , p. 405, n. 156.

5 T. D. Stewart, 'The historic Indian village of Patawomeke, Stafford County, Virginia', MS. in its author's possession.

6 C. C. Willoughby, Antiquities of the New England Indians (Cambridge, Mass., 1935), pp. 284-7.

7 R. Flannery, An analysis of coastal Algonquian culture (1939), pp. 64-6; Swanton, The Indians of the southeastern United States (1946) pp. 433-9.

8 Quinn, p. 370.

9 Barlowe, in Quinn, p. 107.

10 Beverley, The history and present state of Virginia (1947), pp. 175, 196.

11 John Smith, Works, 1608-1631 , ed. Edward Arber (1884), pp. cvi-vii, 67; W. Strachey, The historie of travell into Virginia Britania, ed. L. B. Wright and V. Freund (London, Hakluyt Soc., 2nd s., vol. CIII, 1953), p. 78.

12 F. G. Rainey, 'A compilation of historical data contributing to the ethnography of Connecticut and southern New England Indians', Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut, no. 3 (1936), p. 30; A. Skinner, 'Material culture of the Menomini', Indian Notes and Monographs [Misc. no. 20] (New York, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, 1921), p. 247.

13 Barlowe mentions a fire inside an Indian house at Roanoke (Quinn, p.107).

14 See Flannery, Analysis , pp. 62-3.

15 Willoughby, Antiquities , pp. 289-91.

16 Flannery, Analysis, pp. 65-6; Rainey, 'Compilation', pp. 28-30; Willoughby, Antiquities , pp. 289-93; Swanton, Indians , pp. 386-415; W. F. Kinsey, 'A Susquehannock longhouse', American Antiquity, vol. XXIII (1957), pp. 180-1.

17 Beverley, Virginia, p.176.

18 Smith, Works , pp. 19, 67; Strachey, Historie of travell , p. 79; Swanton, Indians , p. 422.

19 Quinn, p. 107.

20 F. G. Speck, Gourds of the southeastern Indians (Boston, 1941), p. 28.

21 Quinn, p. 366.; W. H. Holmes, 'The Tomahawk', American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. X (1908), p. 268.

22 See G. M. Allen, 'Dogs of the American aborigines', Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard , vol. LXIII (1920), pp. 431-517; W. G. Haag, 'An osteometric analysis of some aboriginal dogs', University of Kentucky Reports in Anthropology, vol. VII (1948), pp. 107-264; G. Friederici, 'Der Indianerhund von Nordamerika', Globus , vol. LXXVI (Brunswick, 1899), pp. 361-5; E. M. Butler and W. S. Hadlock, 'Dogs of the northeastern woodland Indians', Bulletin of the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, vol. X (1949), pp. 17-35.

23 Allen, p. 482.

35. INDIAN WOMAN AND YOUNG GIRL

A woman is standing to the front with her head turned half-right and with a child standing at her left side, facing half-left. The woman is wearing an apron-skirt of fringed skin of which only the part in front is visible, edged at top and bottom with a single row of white beads. Her hair is fringed in front, long behind and caught up at the nape of her neck. A headband, probably of woven beadwork, is shown running across her forehead and under the hair at each side. A close-fitting three-string necklace with a pendant is either worn or suggested by painting or tattooing on the skin. She also wears a long three-strand bead necklace hanging to her waist, through which her right hand is thrust. Painted or tattooed decoration is visible on her forehead, cheek and chin and on her upper arms. She holds in her left hand a large bottle-shaped gourd vessel. The girl's head reaches almost to the woman's waist and her hair is fringed on the forehead, hanging free at the sides and back. She wears a necklace of at least three strands of red and blue or black beads, with a tongue-like pendant which she is holding in her right hand. Her sole article of clothing is a thong or string passing round the waist, where it is tied in front, and through her crutch where it secures a small pad. In her left hand she holds a doll dressed in Elizabethan female costume.

Black, various shades of grey and brown water-colours, touched with white and crimson body-colours, over black lead; 26.3 x 14.9 cm. or 10 3/8 x 5 7/8 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, "A cheife Herowans wyfe of Pomeoc. | and her daughter of the age of .8. or. | .10. yeares. "

1906-5-9-I (13), L.B. I (14), C-M. & H. 33.

Literature : Quinn, p. 417, no. 34 (a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, pp. 40-41, no. 33, pl. II.

OFFSET

The darker tints have offset evenly, and the lighter tints less strongly, the description being barely visible.

P. & D., 199.a.2, L.B. 2 (14).

The plate, entitled 'A cheiff Ladye of Pomeiooc', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). The woman's stance is slightly modified, her left foot being behind her right and the girl is running towards her from the right, holding up in her right hand an English rattle, with the doll in her left. The figures are set against a landscape background of shoals with Indians fishing from canoes, and low tree-crowned hills. There are a number of minor differences in the figures: the woman has no headband, there are no tattoo marks on her chin but they appear on her calves, the smaller 'necklace' is definitely simulated; the girl's necklace is two-string without a pendant.

14.8 x 21.6 cm. or 5 7/8 x 8 1/2 in.
De Bry, America, pt.1(1590), pl. VIII.

Literature: Quinn, pp. 417-18, no. 34 (b); Croft-Murray & Hulton, pp. 40-1, no. 33.

Hariot's caption for the engraving (B) mentions the woman's hair knot, and also specifies that her skin is tattooed ('pownced'). Her necklace is described as five or six strands of large pearls or copper or bone beads. The skirt in front is of deerskin, he says, but she is 'almost altogither naked behinde'. He was evidently not very familiar with the use of gourd containers, as he says this one is 'full of some kinde of pleasant liquor'. The girl's slight clothing was the type worn by girls less than ten years old (older children wore adult clothing), according to Hariot. The string is leather, and the pad over the genitalia is 'mose of trees'. The doll and rattle were 'brought oute of England'; in another place Hariot includes dolls among the 'trifles' handed out by the English on their first arrival at Roanoke. ¹

The appearance of the woman's necklace (in (A), not (B)) suggests a woven strip of beads, rather than several separate strands. The blue colour may indicate shell beads, rather than Hariot's pearls, copper or bone. Beverley reproduces De Bry's engraving with this figure almost unchanged, and describes the necklace as of 'peak'-i.e. cylindrical white or purple shell beads. Pearls from mussels are however frequently mentioned among these Indians and others in the south-east. ² Copper beads are mentioned by others for this region. The metal was obtained by trade from the interior; although Swanton suggested that it may have derived ultimately from the Great Lakes region, there are other sources of native copper much closer. ³ The child's necklace may contain beads received from the English--so the red colour indicates, unless this is meant to represent copper. Beverley interprets this necklace as consisting of 'runtees'-shell beads either oval and drilled longitudinally, or flat and circular drilled edgewise. ⁴

The woman's hairdress is definitely the more common of the two types depicted by White (see no. 37 for the other); it seems not to be mentioned for the Carolina Algonkians except in Hariot's caption to this illustration, but it was also one of the types used by Virginia Indian women, and is one of the many forms which can be inferred from early accounts of the south-eastern tribes. It is also mentioned for the Delaware. ⁵

John Gerard, evidently depending on verbal information from members of Raleigh's expedition, describes milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, as yielding a 'silke...vsed of the people of Pomeioc, and other of the prouinces adioining (being parts of Virginia) to couer the secret parts of maidens that neuer tasted man, as in other places they vse a white kinde of mosse'. ⁶ John Lawson, writing of the North Carolina Indians in the first decade of the eighteenth century, says that women past puberty always wore under their aprons of skin or cloth 'a small String round the Waist, to which another is tied and comes between their Legs, where always is a Wad of Moss against the Ospubis'. Similar clothing of young girls occurred among the lower Mississippi tribes. ⁷

Speck reproduces this engraving as the frontispiece in his work on Gourds of the southeastern Indians. Water containers of large, necked bottle-gourds (Lagenaria siceraria) were common in the south-east, although Speck illustrates no modern ones with precisely this form; later he added references to gourd water containers among the Mahican and Montauk in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. ⁸

1 Quinn, pp. 414, 418.

2 Beverley, Virginia, pp. 168-9, 227; Quinn, pp. 110, 333; Swanton, Indians, pp. 488-9.

3 Swanton, Indians, pp. 490-4; Lane, in Quinn, p. 268; V. J. Hurst and L. H. Larson, Jr., 'On the source of copper at the Etowah site, Georgia', American Antiquity, vol. XXIV (1958), pp. 177-81.

4 Beverley, Virginia, pp. 168, 227.

5 Percy, in Smith, Works, pp. lxix-lxx; Beverley, Virginia, pp. 159-62; Swanton, Indians, pp. 498-504; W. W. Newcomb, Jr., The culture and acculturation of the Delaware Indians' (Anthropological Papers, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, no. X (1956)), p. 26.

6 Gerard, Herball, p. 752, Quinn, p. 446. See also no. 55 (D).

7 J. Lawson, History of North Carolina, ed. F. L. Harriss (Richmond, Va., 1952), pp. 201-2; Swanton, Indians, p. 476.

8 Speck, Gourds; F. G. Speck, 'Addendum to "Gourds of the southeastern Indians"', Gourd Seed, vol. x (Boston, 1949), pp. 3-4.

36. OLD INDIAN MAN

The man is standing to the front, his face half-left, with feet apart. His greying hair is drawn flat at the sides and caught up in a knot at the back, leaving a roach down the middle of his head. Some facial hair is visible on his chin, cheeks, and upper hp. He wears a large fringed deerskin mantle thrown over his left shoulder and reaching below the knee, leaving the right shoulder bare, with the top edge turned down to reveal the hairy side. A neat seam is visible down the left side. His right hand lies across his body clasping his mantle, his left is extended at the side and points down with the index finger. He is perhaps wearing an ear ornament.

Black, touches of brown body-colour, various shades of brown and grey water-colours, heightened with white (partly oxidized), especially along the edges of the feet, hands and shoulder, all over black lead outlines; 26.1 x 15 cm. or 10 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The aged man in his wynter garment. "

1906-5-9-1(19), L.B. I (20), C-M. & H. 34.

Literature: Quinn, p. 418, no. 35(a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 41, no. 34.

OFFSET

The figure is incomplete, the face lacking definition. The black of the hair and mantle has offset strongly, the brown tightly and irregularly.

P. & D.,199.a.2, L.B. 2 (20).

The man has been substantially modified, particularly in his facial expression and physique, although the stance and costume are similar. He is wearing a feather stuck upright on his forehead, while another appears at the right-hand side of his face. He has also a three-strand bead necklace, most of which is hidden beneath his mantle, and there is a suggestion of an ornament on the left wrist. The foreground is more definitely indicated in greenish-yellow wash. The colour in general is lighter, pinkish rather than brown, and brownish-grey rather than grey; the white has been omitted.

Black, various shades of brown, brownish-grey, pink and greenish-yellow water-colours, over black lead outlines.

P. & D., 199.a.3 (formerly Sloane MS. 5270), f. 10v., L.B. 3 (7).

Literature: Quinn, p. 419, no. 35 (b); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 64.

C. COPY FROM B

B.M., Dept. of MSS., Add. (formerly Sloane) MS. 5253, no. 16.

The plate, entitled 'An ageed manne in his winter garment', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). The figure is set on a ridge above a landscape background showing the village of Pomeiooc surrounded by fields of maize (one on the right containing the raised field watcher's but from the Secoton illustration), and beyond, a belt of trees and shoals with Indians fishing from canoes. The figure itself shows a few variations: the overlap of the mantle reveals more fur on the inside, a wider flap or tail in the centre of the upper fringe is more clearly shown, no seam is indicated and no ear ornament is precisely defined, but a pair of moccasins is worn without visible fastenings; the hooked nose and high cheek bones of the original have been Europeanized and the index finger of the left hand is hardly pointing.

15.5 x 21.5 cm. or 6 1/8 x 8 1/2 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. IX.

Literature: Quinn, p. 419, no. 35 (c); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 41, no. 34.

According to Hariot, this is a man of Pomeiooc, and the garment shown is of skin, 'Dressed with the hair on, and lyned with other furred skinnes', tied on one shoulder. Elsewhere Hariot specifies deerskins. The hairdress is described-a knot at the back with a 'crest' on top-and facial hair, although sparse, is mentioned as a trait of older men; young men plucked their beards. ¹

Three other White illustrations clearly show this type of robe: with the right arm free as here (nos. 42 (A), (B), 44 (A), (B)), or with the left arm free (no. 43 (A), (B)). One of these (no. 42) is worn by a woman, and the robe is there belted (as Beverley says they sometimes were in Virginia), ² but not in the other instances (the woman in no. 44 (A), (B), as well as the man may be wearing such a robe).

None of the illustrations show the knot on the shoulder. A similar garment was worn by the Virginia Algonkians in whose language it was called matchcore ³ or mantchcor. ⁴ The Delaware evidently had a winter garment similar to the Carolina and Virginia robe. The type was widespread in eastern North America. Many of the early descriptions mention the fur being worn next to the body and the right arm left bare. ⁵

The engraving (D), and a man and woman shown in the engraving, no. 42 (B), supply the only evidence for moccasins among the Carolina Algonkians, although they would be expected here as elsewhere in the east. ⁶ However, De Bry's form is without parallel, but Beverley's derivative ⁷ adds a puckered seam up the toe which converts the form to a type in Hatt's series I or II, common in eastern North, America. ⁸ If De Bry was here copying a lost variant of White's, we may safely assume that he omitted the seam up the toe of the moccasins.

Depilation of the naturally scant facial hair was normal practice with men of many American Indian tribes. However, there were several exceptions in the east, among older men as here. ⁹

1 Quinn, pp. 335, 368, 419.

2 Beverley, Virginia, p.162.

3 Smith, Works, pp. 44, 66, 381; Beverley, Virginia, pp.161-3.

4 Apparently mantchcor on the photo copy of the Strachey vocabulary in J. P. Harrington, 'The original Strachey vocabulary of the Virginia Indian language', Anthropological Papers, no. 46, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin, no. 157 (1955), sheet 4, although this was read mantchoor by Harrington, and by Wright and Geary in Strachey, Historie of travell, p.180 (the variation between mantchcor and matchcore reflects a dialect difference in Virginia Algonkian noted by Geary in Strachey, p. 210). This is the source, by folk etymology, of the English term 'Match coat', widely used in colonial North America for a short Indian coat (including trade items) (G. Friederici, 'Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch', Universität Hamburg, Abhandlungen aus dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde, Bd. 53 -Reihe B. Völkerkunde, Kulturgeschichte and Sprachen, Bd. 29, 1947 pp. 400-1).

5 Newcomb, Delaware Indians, pp. 25-6; Swanton, Indians, pp. 458-60; Willoughby, Antiquities, p. 280.

6 See Swanton, Indians, pp. 463-8, and Flannery, Analysis, p. 44-both of whom, as Quinn, p. 419, points out, overlooked these illustrations.

7 Beverley, Virginia, pp.163-4.

8 G. Hatt, 'Moccasins and their relation to Arctic footwear', Memoirs of the American Anthropological Association, vol. III, no. 3 (1916), pp. 153-60.

9 Powhatan; southern Georgia; Micmac? (Flannery, Analysis, p. 47, and Swanton, Indians, p. 498).

37. INDIAN WOMAN AND BABY OF POMEIOOC

The woman is standing to the left, her back to the observer, her head turned towards the front, looking over her left shoulder. She carries a naked child on her back who grips her shoulders with both arms and whose left leg is tucked under and through her left arm, while the right hangs down. Her hair forms what now appears to be a grey cap (almost as if it were a wig--an effect caused by the removal of the surface wash by water) and from it some straggling hairs emerge in a fringe at the front and loosely at the neck. Her upper arms are decorated with bands of zigzag and other patterns, either painted or tattooed. She wears a double apron-skirt of fringed skin which reaches half-way down her thighs.

Black, brown and grey water-colours in several shades, touched with white (partly oxidized), over black lead; 25.7 x 14.1 cm. or 10 1/8 x 5 5/8 in.

Inscribed in brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Pomeiooc. "

1906-5-9-1 (15), L.B. I (16), C-M. & H. 35.

Literature: Quinn, p. 419, no. 36 (a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, pp. 41-2, no. 35.

OFFSET

The dark colours, especially of the child's hair and the woman's skirt, have been transferred more strongly than the brown tints. The face and inscription are imperfectly offprinted.

P. & D.,199.a.2, L.B. 2 (16).

The plate, entitled 'Their manner of careynge ther Childern and a tyere of the cheiffe Ladyes of the towne of Dasamonquepeuc', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). It is in reverse of (A). The figure is duplicated to give a front view and a landscape background has been added, of shoals with Indians fishing from canoes and low treelined hills. There are few significant variations in the figure: she has ear ornaments of three pendant spheres, there are tattoo marks on the cheek and (from the front view) she is seen to have a simulated two-strand necklace.

15 x 21.4 cm. or 5 7/8 x 8 1/2 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. x.

Literature: Quinn, p. 420, no. 36 (b); Croft-Murray & Hulton, pp. 41-2, no. 35.

Hariot's caption to the engraving (B) explains that women of Dasemunkepeuc were dressed and tattooed ('pownced') like those of Roanoke, except that they did not wear headbands nor tattoo their thighs. Hariot also remarks on the method of carrying children as typical, and contrasting with the English custom. ¹

The woman's simple hairdress is one of the two types depicted by White (see no. 35 for the other). It was paralleled in Virginia and was apparently one of the more common modes among south-eastern Indians. ²

The method of carrying a child shown here is described by Beverley in the caption accompanying his slightly modified copy of De Bry's engraving as typical for summertime; in the winter, Virginia Indian babies were carried in their mothers' robes at the back. But Beverley also illustrates (crudely) and describes a cradleboard, which he says was used to hold and carry younger babies. ³ Cradleboards were general throughout the south-east and north-east. ⁴ Swanton suggests that White here illustrates the method for carrying children who had outgrown the cradleboard; ⁵ yet it is curious that there is no evidence for the cradleboard in White's illustrations nor in the documents on the Roanoke voyages; the only written reference to child carrying is White's mention of a Croatoan woman with 'her childe at her backe' ⁶ -perhaps in the manner shown here. Certainly the exotic object, if present, should have been noticed. Detailed information on methods of carrying children too old for the cradleboard is difficult to locate; however, the position shown here can be interpreted as a variant or misapprehension of the hip-straddling method used by modern Florida Seminole mothers-where the cradleboard is also unknown. ⁷

1 Quinn, p. 420.

2 Beverley, Virginia, p. 159; Swanton, Indians, pp. 498-501.

3 Beverley, Virginia, pp. 172-3.

4 Swanton, Indians, pp. 562-3; Flannery, Analysis, pp. 91-2; 0. T. Mason, 'Cradles of the American aborigines', Report of the U.S. National Museum (Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1887, pt. 2 (1889)), pp. 204-8.

5 Swanton, Indians, p. 513.

6 Quinn, p. 531.

7 W. C. Sturtevant, 'Ethnographic field notes on the Florida Seminole, 1950-3, 1959', MS. in author's possession.

38. VILLAGE OF SECOTON

A bird's-eye view of an unenclosed Indian village of thirteen houses of light pole and mat construction. At the top, a path leads from water (a stream or pond) to the main group of houses where it widens into a central thoroughfare running down through the settlement. On the street, in the centre of the main group of houses, a spoke-shaped fire attended by two Indians is burning and below, further down the path, are shown mats spread out on which are three large circular eating vessels and six small objects of indefinite form. One squatting and two sitting figures are seen eating and one man armed with a bow stands by. To the right of the path and street are three cornfields each at a different stage of growth. The top field of ripe maize contains a small hut, open at one side, which may shelter a seated figure and is mounted on a platform with four legs. A path to the right separates this field from the two lower ones in which crops of unripe and very young maize are growing. The last has faint indications perhaps representing hills around the bases of the plants. To the left of the unripe maize is a house with a small fenced yard before the door which is in the centre of the end wall. The houses to the left of the road are set among (or near to) birch-like trees. Among the trees to the left are two houses with three figures nearby, two of them apparently carrying bows. Four other figures are to be seen among the main group of houses, which are shown with open ends, several revealing the pole framework and side platforms, while a few have small window-like openings. At the bottom right a path separates the lowest cornfield from the ceremonial area and is bordered by a row of seven posts. Below this is a circle of seven posts, the tops of which are possibly carved in the form of human heads, and on a path around it nine Indians (apparently all men), with feathers in their hair and waving gourd rattles, are dancing. Some wear a single apron-skirt and others apparently are naked or wear breech-clouts only. One Indian crouches beside a post outside the circle to the right and six others squat or sit in line on the roadway to the left. A further path is indicated at the bottom right, below the dancers. To the left of the roadway, opposite the circle, a path surrounds four posts within which a spoke-shaped log fire is burning, a fifth post being seen to the right near where the path joins the road. The heads of the posts are again possibly carved like the others. To the left of the fire is a but with the end covered and below, at the bottom left, is a house taller than the rest which may have openings in the end wall. A short path leads from it to the road.

Black, crimson and brown body-colours, brown, yellow, grey and blue water-colours, heightened with white (partly oxidized) and gold, over black lead outlines; some running of the colours as a result of water damage; 32.4 x 19.9 cm. or 12 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, in the top right-hand corner, on the first field of maize, "Their rype corne" .; below, on the second field, "Their greene corne" .; on the third field, "Come newly sprong" . In the centre, below the eating figures, "their sitting at meale" . In a semi-circle about the fire, near the bottom left-hand corner, "The place of solemne prayer" and below, above the hut, "The house wherein the Tombe of their Herounds standeth" . To the right, on the street, below the line of squatting figures, "SECOTAN" ., and to the right again, below the dancing figures , "A Ceremony in their prayers wth | strange iesturs and songs dansing | about post carved on the topps | lyke mens faces" .

1906-5-9-1 (7), L.B. 1(6), C-M. & H. 36.

Literature: Quinn, pp. 420-1, no. 37(a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 42, no. 36.

OFFSET

The right and centre part of the drawing has offset lightly and evenly, the left side irregularly and with considerable water stains.

P. & D., 199.a.2, L.B. 2(6).

The plate, entitled 'The Tovvne of Secota', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). The disposition of the huts and main groups of figures is as in the drawing, though more huts are visible among the trees in the left background and more Indians near the food bowls. The plate also shows a large plot of tobacco to the right of the trees in the left background and another, together with sunflowers, on the left, towards the foreground. To the left of the lowest field of maize is a border of pumpkins. The ripe ears of maize in the top field are wrongly shown without husks. There are only six posts round the dance circle.

30.9 x 23.2 cm or 12 1/8 x 9 1/8 in.
De Bry, America , pt. 1 (1590), pl. XX.

Literature : Quinn, pp. 421-3, no. 37(b); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 42, no. 36, pl. VI.

Secotan was probably located on the south side of the Pamlico River, perhaps near the present Bonnerton, North Carolina. ¹

Hariot's caption to the engraving (B) specifies that this was one of the towns lacking a palisade, whereas others had them. He implies that the houses were more widely and irregularly spaced in such villages. The letters on the engraving are keys to descriptions in the caption: A, charnel house, the interior being shown in no. 41, B, 'wher they assemble themselues to make their solemne prayers, (cf. the captions to nos. 42 (B) and 43 (B)); C, dance ground, as shown in no. 42; D, 'a place. . . whear after they have ended their feaste [i.e., dance, as in no. 42] they make merrie togither'; E, two gardens of tobacco; F, a half-round hut on a 'scaffold', where someone is placed to watch the maize field and 'maketh continual cryes and noyse' to scare away 'fowles, and beasts'; G, field of ripe maize; H, field of newly planted maize; I, garden of 'pompions'; K, 'a place . . . wherin the make a fvre att their solemne feasts' (elsewhere in the caption: '. . . they solemnise their feasts in the nigt, and therfore they keepe verye great fyres to auoyde darkenes'); L, a nearby river 'from whence they fetche their water'. ²

It has been stated that this scene was probably drawn by White on July 15-16th , 1585. ³ The three stages of maize shown agree well with this date, since, according to Barlowe, ⁴ the Carolina Algonkians planted three crops per year, in May (harvested in July), June (harvested in August), and July (harvested in September). ⁵ The ripe maize shown may be the variety which, according to Hariot, was 10 feet high when ripe at fourteen weeks (there were two other varieties which ripened in ten to twelve weeks, when they were 6-7 feet tall). ⁶

Planting of maize in small hills (or hilling earth around the bases of partly grown plants) was widespread in the east--it is mentioned at least for New England, the Iroquois, the Delaware, the Virginia Algonkian, and the Chickasaw or a neighboring tribe, and there are archaeological traces in various places. ⁷ However, maize hills are not mentioned in the description of Carolina Algonkian agricultural methods, and the uncertain indications in this illustration would not be so interpreted were it not for the comparative evidence.

According to Hariot intercropping was the usual practice here: maize, beans, pumpkins, gourds, and melden ⁸ were planted together in the same plot; but tobacco was grown separately. However, these plants were also grown 'sometimes in groundes apart and seuerally by themselves', as shown here. ⁹ Beverley writes that the Virginia Indians planted maize and beans together, but more often in separate patches. ¹⁰

The larger and more detailed Secoton watch-house in a maize field is probably the original of the ones shown in the background of the engraving of the old man of Pomeiooc (no. 36) and near the village of Roanoke in the view of the arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia (no. 33). Apparent parallels are recorded for the seventeenth-century Narragansett and for the Chickasaw (or some nearby group) in the eighteenth century. ¹¹ Although there are only three references here, they are widely spaced; probably such watch-houses were relatively common in aboriginal eastern North America.

The sunflowers shown here are identified by Heiser as 'excellent drawings' of the giant sunflower, Helianthus annuus, var. macrocarpus (DC.) Cockerell, widely cultivated for its seeds in aboriginal North America, where it was broughtunder domestication. ¹² Hariot says that the Carolina Algonkians planted sunflowers between the maize plants, and used the seeds in bread and soup. Virginia Algonkian sunflower seed bread is mentioned by Beverley. ¹³

The tobacco plants illustrated seem to be Nicotiana rustica Linn. rather than the N. tabacum Linn. of modern commerce, ¹⁴ which agrees with the generally accepted view that N. rustica was the species cultivated by the Indians of eastern North America, whereas N. tabacum was introduced here in colonial times. ¹⁵ Setchell identified Strachey's description of Virginia Indian tobacco as referring to N. rustica. ¹⁶ Hariot well describes the Carolina Indian uses of tobacco. ¹⁷

The pumpkins are identified by Hugh Cutler as Cucurbita pepo Linn.; the leaves of C. moschata Duch., the other possibility for this region, are not so deeply lobed. ¹⁸

1 Quinn, p. 871.

2 Quinn, pp. 191, 421.

3 Quinn, pp. 421-3.

4 Quinn, p. 105.

5 However, there is some disagreement in the sources. Hariot (Quinn, p. 343) says that planting was at any time from mid-March until the end of June, while Lane (Quinn, pp. 279-80, 284) mentions a planting in late April, at the demand of the English, for harvest in early July, with a second panting in May.

6 Quinn, p. 338. 'The maize plants resemble the Northern Flint variety, and the 10-12 kernel rows on the ears in no. 44 agree with this' (Hugh C. Cutler, letter to W. C. Sturtevant, June 8th, 1961).

7 Willoughby, Antiquities, p. 296; Rainey, 'Compilation', p. 12; A. C. Parker, 'Iroqious uses of maize and other food plants', New York State Museum Bulletin CXIIV (1910), p. 27; Newcomb, Delaware Indians, p. 14; Smith, Works, p. 62, Strachey, Histoire of travel, p. 119; Beverley, Virginia, p. 144; Adair in Swanton, Indians, p. 310; P. Weatherwax, Indian corn in old America (New York, 1954); pp. 70-2/

8 This is a Dutch name given by Hariot. Swanton (Indians, p. 244), evidently following a suggestion of the botanist E. P. Killip, tentatively identified Hariot's description as referring to Atriplex hastate, orache or salt-bush. There does not seem to be other evidence that this genus was cultivated by North American Indians. Perhaps for this reason, Weatherwax (p. 61) suggested that Hariot's meldon 'may have been a species of Atriplex or Amarantiius'. Amaranths were used, and perhaps cultivated, aboriginally in south-western North America, and were widely cultivated by the Indians of Mexico, and elsewhere in the world, as a grain, pot-herb, and for other uses. There is an archaeological record for the Ozarks, but it is doubtful whether these seeds are from cultivated seeds (J. 1). Sauer, 'The grain Amaranths', Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, vol. XXXVII (1950), p. 563; M. R. Harrington, The Ozark bluff dwellers, Indian Notes and Monographs, vol. XII (Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (1960)), p. 152. Still a third possibility (Willoughby, 'Virginia Indians', p. 83) is a member of the genus Chenopodium, pigweed or goosefoot, which is closely related to Atriplex; seeds of this plant have been found archaeologically in the Ohio River basin and the Ozarks, and some have suggested that this was a cultigen of the prehistoric Indians of the east (G. R. Willey, 'Historical patterns and evolution in native New World culture', pp. 114-41 in S. Tax, ed., Evolution after Darwin, wol. II (Chicago, 1960), p. 128; Harrington, Ozark bluff dwellers, p. 152; R. M. Godin, 'Food of the Adena people', ch. IV in W. S. Webb and R. S. Baby, The Adena people, no. 2 (Columbus, Ohio, 1957). M. L. Fernald and A. C. Kinsey discuss the edibility of the leaves of plants of these three genera, and of the seeds of Chenopodium and Amanranthus (Edible wild plants of eastern North America (Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., 1943), pp. 177-82, 184-5).

9 Quinn, pp. 341-2, 344.

10 Beverley, Virginia, p. 144.

11 Williams in Rainey, 'Compilation', p. 12, and in Flannery, Analysis, p. 85; Adair in Swanton, Indians, p. 309.

12 C. B. Heiser, Jr., 'The sunflower among the North American Indians', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. XCV (1951), p. 435.

13 Quinn, pp. 341-2; Beverley, Virginia, p. 180.

14 See T. H. Goodspeed, 'The genus Nicotiana', Chronica Botanica, vol. XVI (1954), pp. 9, 61-77.

15 W. A. Setchell, 'Aboriginal tobaccos', American Anthropologist, vol. XXIII (1921), pp. 401-3; Goodspeed, p. 9.

16 Setchell, p. 402; Strachey, Historie of travell , pp. 122-3.

17 Quinn, pp. 344-5.

18 Letter to W. C. Sturtevant, February 1st, 1961.

39. INDIAN WOMAN OF SECOTON

The woman is standing, facing half-right with arms folded. Her hair is fringed in front and hangs in wisps at the side and back and is secured by a headband of twisted material. There is a suggestion of an ear ornament. She is wearing a double apron-skirt of fringed skin, ornamented with a double row of beads or pearls. The tassels of the fringe below the waist are heightened, as they are on the lower fringe, with white (oxidized) and show traces of gold. The skirt reaches nearly half-way down the thighs. She is elaborately painted or tattooed with bluish lines on her cheeks, forehead and chin, a simulated necklace ending at a point between her breasts, and patterns on the upper and lower arms and on the calves and instep.

Black, blue and crimson body-colours, brown and various shades of grey water-colours, heightened with white (oxidized) and touched with gold, over black lead outlines.

26 x 13.9 cm. or 10 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.
Inscribed in dark brown ink, along the top, "The wyfe of an Herowan of Secotan. "
1906-5-9-1 (18), L.B. I (19), C-M. & H. 37.

Literature: Quinn, p. 423, no. 38 (a); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 43, no. 37.

OFFSET

The transfer has been rather uneven, the black heavily offprinted, the grey and brown lightly and the blue heavily on the left arm and lower legs, more lightly elsewhere.

The woman is as in (A) but the face, right arm and feet are disfigured by white paint which has oxidized and may be a later addition. The colour of the skin is slightly more pink and that of the skirt is brownish-grey rather than grey. The skirt lacks the bead trimmings and there is no overhanging top fringe. The tattooing throughout is sharply defined in a darker blue, carefully executed, on the upper part of the body, crudely on the legs. The foreground is done in a heavy dark yellow.

Black, crimson body-colour, blue, various shades of brown, brownish-grey and yellow water-colours, heightened with white (oxidized), over black lead outlines; enclosed within a double ruled ink border; 25.6 x 13.1 cm. or 10 1/8 x 5 1/2 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, above, "Of Secoton "

P. & D., 199.a.3 (formerly Sloane MS. 5270), f. 5r., L.B. 3 (8).

Literature: Quinn, p. 423, no. 38 (b) (as without inscription); Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 61.

The plate, entitled 'On of the chieff Ladyes of Secota', is engraved by 'T.B.' (Theodor de Bry). The figure is duplicated to give a rear view and is set against a landscape of shoals and Indians fishing from canoes, with low tree-lined hills beyond. The details of the figure are very close to the original even down to the pattern of the tattoo or painted marks on the cheeks, forehead, neck, arms and calves. The ear ornament is defined as four beads on a pendant attached to the lobe. The feet have been much reduced in size.

15.1 x 21.3 cm. or 5 7/8 x 8 3/4 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. IV.

Literature: Quinn, pp. 423-4, no. 38 I; Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 43, no. 37.

This illustration provides one of the clearest examples of the double-apron skirt, one of the two variants of women's garment which can be clearly distinguished in the original drawings. The drawing (A) confirms the more detailed engraving (C). Harlot's caption is not very specific, merely referring to a dressed deerskin garment hanging down both in front and behind. He also mentions the hairdress: cut short in front, the rest long and hanging to the shoulders, with a 'wreath' on top. ¹ Beverley published a modification of this engraving, specifying that 'a wreath of Furs' is shown. ² According to Hariot the ear ornament was of pearls or 'smooth bones' (the suggestion of shell beads instead of the latter seems reasonable). Hariot explained that the woman's forehead, cheeks, chin, arms and legs are tattooed ('pownced'), whereas the neck ornament may be either tattooed ('pricked') or painted. ³

1 Quinn, pp. 423-4.

2 Beverley, Virginia, pp. 166-7.

3 Quinn, p. 424.

40. INDIAN IDOL

The plate is entitled 'Ther Idol Kivvasa' but the engraver is not indicated. It represents an idol seated in a circular hut. The image has the hair tied in a knot above the head, while the face shows signs of tattooing. It is wearing a close-fitting jerkin, open at the front to reveal some type of undergarment, and tight-fitted sleeves. At the waist is a fringed skin apron-skirt. The knees are extended and the hands are resting on them. Tight-fitting boots are shown reaching to the calves, the tops of which are decorated with three zigzag lines and one straight line of beads or pearls. It is wearing a four-strand necklace of long and spherical beads and there are two strings of beads above each knee. It is seated on a two-step dais covered with matting. The roof is composed of segments of woven cane or matting secured at the centre and has a vertical border from which matting hangs down to the ground, drawn away from the opening to reveal the image.

15.8 x 21.5 cm. or 6 1/4 x 8 1/2 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. XXI.

Literature: Quinn, pp. 424-5, no. 39; Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 43, no. 38.

A rather similar idol is shown in the charnel house (no. 41). The character of the headdress and the costume makes the authenticity of the above doubtful.

In his caption Hariot describes this 'idol' as carved of wood, about 4 feet high, with a head 'like the heades of the people of Florida', all black except for a flesh-coloured face, white breast, and white spots on the thighs. The necklace consisted of white beads alternating with spherical copper beads. This image was kept in the charnel house at Secoton, 'as the keper of the kings dead corpses'. Other 'churches' had two, or a maximum of three, set in a dark corner. ¹

'Idols'--i.e. human figures represented in the round, used for religious purposes--are mentioned by many sources on the Carolina and Virginia Algonkians, and in many other regions in the south-east. ² The references are all early, and the precise meanings and functions of these figures are obscured by the distortion introduced by the European reporters' dualistic emphasis on God and the Devil. ³ However, the Carolina and Virginia association with charnel houses is clear.

The use of such figures was characteristic of the south-east but rare in the north-east.⁴

Archaeological examples occur in the south-east, but normally they are of stone and smaller than the one at Secoton; the functions of these specimens, which usually portray seated figures, are of course uncertain. Two examples (one from Tennessee) have pointed topknots roughly comparable to that in this illustration (and in no. 41). Perhaps the closest archaeological parallel is a much-eroded wooden figure of a seated man, about 2 1/2 feet high, found in a Kentucky cave in 1869. Other fairly close parallels of wood come from the Spiro mound in Oklahoma. ⁵

The hairdress shown here is, as Hariot comments, like that of the Florida Timucua men. In fact it is identical with forms shown in engravings after Le Moyne, published by De Bry with this one--more like them than like White's Timucua drawing (no. 112 (A)) . This hairdress has been interpreted as evidence for diffusion from the south. ⁶ However, it seems much more probable that the resemblance is an artifact of the engraver, perhaps based on a pointed original like the two archaeological examples mentioned. The small image in White's charnel house (no. 41) has a hat-like pointed top vaguely indicated, which was converted by the engraver into a hairdress like that shown here.

There are a number of other suspicious elements in this engraving: the structure disagrees with the buildings shown elsewhere, especially the charnel house in which the image was kept (nos. 38, 41); the figure is much too naturalistic in the European manner, bearing no resemblance to any eastern North American (or other Indian) art style; ⁷ the very high decorated tops on the moccasins, the beads around the thighs, and the neatly tailored jacket are all unparalleled in this region and almost certainly go back ultimately to painted or carved designs with different significance in the original carving.

1 Quinn, pp. 424-5.

2 Swanton, Indians, pp. 613-17, 742-5, 758-9, 763, 778-80; Quinn, pp. 109, 307.

3 Müller, Die Religionen der Waldlandindianer Nordamerikas (Berlin, 1956), p. 34.

4 Although there are a few early references for the Iroquois: W. M. Beauchamp, 'Aboriginal use of wood in New York', N.Y. State Museum Bulletin, no. LXXXIX (Archeology, no. XI (1905)), pp. 173-4; M. H. Deardorff, 'The religion of Handsome Lake', Bureau of American. Ethnology, Bulletin, no. 149 (1951), p. 85; A. F. C. Wallace, ed., Halliday Jackson's Journal to the Seneca Indians, 1798-1800 [Harrisburg, Pa.?], [1952?], p. 26.

5 References to archaeological examples are given by W. S. Webb and D. L. Dejarnette, 'An archeological survey of the Pickwick Basin', Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin, no. 129 (1942), pp. 296-7; illustrations are in E. L. Fundaburk and M. D. F. Foreman, eds., Sun circles and human hands(Luverne, Ala., 1957), pls. 97-8, 141 (the examples with topknots on pl. 98) and in H. W. Hamilton, 'The Spiro mound', Missouri Archaeologist, vol. XIV (1952), pls. 25-6. The Kentucky specimen, now catalogue number 4/8069 in the Museum of the American Indian, New York, is illustrated by W. K. Moorehead, The Stone Age in North America(Boston and New York, 1910), Vol. II, p. 27--but his description of it as having ears pierced for earrings and wrists grooved for bracelets is imaginative. The most detailed description in the early records is Beverley's account of his examination of three bundles hidden in a Virginia temple. One of these contained what he took to be a disassembled 'idol'. A board about 3 1/2 feet long with a notch or fork at one end for the head (which was missing), attached hoops to form the body, mid jointed boards forming legs; in the bundle were cloths to cover the hoops and bent rolls of cloth for arms and legs. One wonders whether this was really an 'idol'. Beverley's interpretation (and his memory of what he saw) may have been influenced by De Bry's engraving, which he reproduced (Beverley, Virginia, pp. 196-7, 199). Can it have been a medicine bundle? Although there are no records of medicine bundles in this region, Müller has pointed out that this may be because of Indian secretiveness due to fear of the harmful effects of contemptuous Europeans on the sacred objects, rather than because of a genuine absence of them (Müller, Religionen, p. 235, n. 76).

6 Willoughby, 'The Virginia Indians in the seventeenth century', American Anthropologist, n.s., vol. IX (1907), p. 63; Müller, Religionen, pp. 34, 289; and, doubtfully, Quinn, p. 424.

7 White's original was also probably a poor representation of the object--Indian artistic styles are so exotic that most non-Indian artists have difficulties in representing them--but it is very unfortunate that except for the small vague figure in no. 41 we now have only a version further distorted by the engraver.

41. INDIAN CHARNEL HOUSE

A rectangular building (20 x 13.5 cm. or 7 7/8 x 5 3/8 in.) of pole and mat construction with curved roof, is raised perhaps 6 feet above the ground on eleven timber posts. The front end is open and the mat covering thrown back over the roof. The raised floor is made of either narrow poles or cane. Below it, in front, is a border or pelmet of cane or mat, perhaps 18 inches deep. On the raised floor lies a row of ten pale, naked and emaciated bodies placed close together on their backs, their arms by their sides and their heads almost reaching the front edge of the floor. Their hair is shown drawn out from the scalp to a point or knot. At their feet, four large rectangular bundles of matting with curved tops lie two by two against the end wall of the building. The figure of an idol ('Kywash') is represented sitting slightly elevated, with legs flexed and hands on knees, close to the right-hand wall and some little way back. It appears to be dressed in black throughout with a white streak or opening on the chest (giving the effect almost of a jacket and trousers with a white undergarment showing in front). Its feet and hands are black and on its head is a large round hat, brownish in colour, with a rolled brim, coming to a point at the top. The face is pale and looks to the front. Under the floor of the building, inside the wooden posts, are two reddish-brown skins spread out on the ground, one on top of the other. In front a small spoke-shaped wood fire is burning. The building stands on a levelled foundation a little wider than itself and extending to the front of the drawing.

Black, various shades of brown, reddish-brown, pink and grey water-colours, heightened with gold on the flames, over black lead outlines; 29.5 x 20.4 cm. or 11 5/8 x 8 in.

Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, "The Tombe of their Cherounes or cheife personages, their flesh clene taken of from the bones saue | the skynn and heare of theire heads, wch flesh is dried and enfolded in matts laide at theire | feete. their bones also being made dry, ar couered wth deare skynns not altering | their forme or proportion. With theire Kywash, which is an | Image of woode keeping the deade. "

1906-5-9-1 (9), L.B. I (8), C-M. & H. 38.

Literature: Quinn, p. 425, no. 40 (a) ; Croft-Murray & Hulton, p. 43, no. 38, pl. 30.

There is a possible discrepancy between the inscription and the drawing. The former indicates that only the skeletons covered with deerskins, and with mummified heads, were preserved, but the drawing could show bodies which, though very emaciated, have flesh on their bones.

OFFSET

The recumbent figures and the fire are only faintly visible, but the rest of the drawing and inscription have been transferred lightly but clearly. The black of the idol has offset strongly.

P. & D.,199.a.2, L.B. 2 (8).

The plate, entitled 'The Tombe of their Werovvans or Cheiff Lordes', is unsigned and in reverse of (A). It shows the interior of a tall but with an arched roof enclosing the structure shown in the drawing but with ten posts supporting the floor. It contains only nine bodies, with roached hairdress, the idol differing in appearance and seated on a small ledge on the left. A priest crouching, tending the fire and dressed as in no. 45, has been added to the right foreground. The variant drawing used by the engraver was clearly made within the large but shown in the bottom left-hand corner of the view of Secoton village (no. 38 (A), pl. 35).

30.4 x 20.6 cm. or 12 x 8 1/8 in.
De Bry, America, pt. I (1590), pl. XXII.