418 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



tolerable in them, because they want the refreshing of beer with which 

 God hath vouchsafed Europe.' The men throughout the country have 

 a tobacco bag, with a pipe in it, hanging at their back. Sometimes they 

 make such great pipes, both of wood and stone, that are 2 foot long, 

 with men or beasts carved so big or massive that a man may be hurt mor 

 tally by one of them ; but these (iommonly come from the Mauquauwogs 

 (Mohawks), or the man-eaters, 300 or 400 miles from us. Tliey have an 

 excellent art to cast our pewter and brass into very neat and artificial 

 pipes." ^ "Narragansett," says Wood, ''was the storehouse of all such 

 kinds of merchandise as is amongst the Indians of those parts. From 

 hence othei- tribes have their great stone pipes, which will hold a 

 quarter of an ounce of tobacco, which they make with steel drills and 

 other instruments. Such is their ingenuity and dexterity that they 

 can imitate the mold so accurately that were it not for matter and 

 eolor it were hard to distinguish them. They make them of green and 

 sometimes of black stone." ^ 



In 1074 the Narragansetts are spoken of as having been a great peo- 

 ple, whose sachem was about Cannonicut Island, and who "are now 

 but few comparatively; all that people can not make above 1,000 men."^ 

 This tribe was probably one of those which sutl'ered so severely during 

 the first half of the seventeenth century from the ravages of an epidemic 

 that is said to have carried off the inhabitants of whole villages. 

 Williams gives the name of a pipe as " Wuttammagon — literally, a drink 

 instrument," or "Hupuonck." In 1620 we are told that ''Massassoyt," 

 chief of the Wampanoags, was "a lusty man of middle age, of a grave, 

 demure countenance and sparing of speech. He had a long knife hang- 

 ing in a string at his bosom, and behind at his back a little pouch of 

 tobacco. This was furniture he never was without. His men also had 

 their bags of tobacco at their backs." '^ 



Samuel G. Drake says of Massassoit that he "differed from the rest 

 of his followers only in a great chain of white bone beads. About his 

 neck hangs a little bag of tobacco, which he drank and gave us to 

 drink." •' 



James Thatcher refers also in 1621 to Samoset having a wild cat skin 

 on one arm, coming with some of his companions to the town of Plym- 

 outh, and bringing with them some parched corn reduced to a fine 

 powder called "nokehike," or "nocake," which they eat mixed with water, 

 and "had a little tobacco in a bag, of which they drank frequently."" 



1 Roger Williams, A Key iufo the Lauj^iiage of America, p. 73. 



2Idem, p. 73. 



=* William Wood, New England's Piospect, Ft. 2, Chap. 3, 1639, quoted in Nana- 

 gaasett Club publications, I, p. 73, note. 



■• Massachusetts Historical Society, I, p. 148, referring to Gookin, 1674. 



5 John Harris, A Relation of the Plantation at Plymouth, Voyages and Travels, I, 

 p. 853, London, 1705. 



"Sunuiel O. Drake, History and Biography of the Indians, p. 86, Boston, 1851. 



'James Thatcher, History of the Town of Plymouth, p. 34, Boston, 1835. 



I 



