gators in “good comfort” of being able to pass into the safe harbor beyond. Here Captain Newport caused the shallop to be manned and rowed to the mainland, where he saw an Indian village of eighteen wigwams. Captain George Percy, brother of the Earl of Northumberland, gives us this account of this first meeting of the white men and the savages:
“When we came first a land they made a doleful noise, laying their faces to the ground, scratching the earth with their nails. We did thinke they had beene at their Idolatry. When they had ended their Ceremonies, they went into their houses and brought out mats and laid upon the ground: The chiefest of them sate all in a rank; the meanest sort brought us such dainties as they had, and of their bread which they make of their Maiz or Gennea wheat. They would not suffer us to eat unless we sate down, which we did on a mat right against them. After we were well satisfied they gave us of their tobacco, which they tooke in a pipe made artificially of earth as ours are, but far bigger, with the bowle fashioned together with a piece of fine copper. After they had feasted us, they showed us, in welcome, their manner of dancing, which was in this fashion. One of the savages standing in the midst singing, beating one hand against another, all the rest dancing about him, shouting, howling, and stamping against the ground, with many Anticke tricks and faces, making noise like so many Wolves or Devils. One thing of them I observed; when they were in their dance they kept stroke with their feet just one with another, but with their hands, heads, faces and bodies, every one of them had a severall gesture; so they continued for the space of halfe an houre. When they had ended their dance, the Captain gave them Beades and other trifling jewells.”
The curious antics of the Indians described in the above paragraph had probably a deeper meaning than Percy suspected. The religion of the Powhatan Indians consisted in a belief in a great number of devils, who were to be warded off by pow-wows and conjurations, and they were inclined to believe that Percy and his friends, if not devils, were messengers sent by devils. The pipes displayed were probably the peace pipes, which were often of very large dimensions and curiously carved.
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