208 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 191 



It happened that the English of Virginia carried on war against these Minquas. 

 When the English now came to these savages, marching 2 or 3 hundred men strong, 

 with a few [small] field cannon, they pitched their camp a short distance from the 

 dwellings of the above-mentioned savages. But these savages are somewhat 

 cleverer in building, than our own river Indians who live closer to us, using pali- 

 sades around their dwellings. Therefore the English did not run, precipitously 

 upon them, but first fired a few cannon [balls against their fort]. Then the English 

 did not know a word about it, before the savages had surrounded the English, 

 were in their rear and drove them into flight, killing some of them and brought 

 home with them 15 prisoners, whom they later, after a lapse of a few days, mar- 

 tyred to death wretchedly and unchristianlike. Because some of these prisoners 

 were of noble birth and of some importance and value, the English offered for each 

 one of them a few 100 florins for ransom; but the savages did not care for ransom 

 or a sum of money, but seemed to be more anxious to exact their revenge and 

 satisfy their anger on these poor prisoners. They therefore erected a high plat- 

 form, placing large piles of bark below it, upon which they poured all kinds of 

 pitch, bear-fat, et ialia, etc. Through this they wanted to indicate that whatso- 

 ever kind of drink the English wanted to pour out for them, that they themselves 

 would now have to imbibe. They also erected a post in the earth for each pris- 

 oner, around which they also placed piles of bark and poured fat thereupon, just 

 as has been stated before. Then they took the prisoners out to undergo their 

 punishment. They first brought them up on the high framework, who were bound 

 around their waists with long slender iron chains; then they put fire to the bark, 

 lying below, and later, shoved one prisoner after the other down into the fire, 

 which burnt with terrible violence. When they had been tormented somewhat 

 in this fire, then the savages pulled them out of it. 



Then they bound the said prisoners to the above-mentioned poles, put fire 

 also to that bark in which they had to dance, until they were practically half 

 roasted. Nor did they want that any of them should lose his life in the fire, 

 because they wanted to inflict upon them as much suffering as possible; wherefore 

 they pulled the prisoners out again, placing them in front of themselves. Then 

 they brought forth their doctor of medicine, whom they otherwise called the 

 devil-chaser (why he has this name we will learn to know in the next following 

 chapter) . He took his knife and cut each one of the prisoners right over the fore- 

 head from one ear to the other, then he took the skin and pulled it backward on the 

 neck or the throat, then he cut the tongue out of the mouths of all the prisoners. 

 On one of them he wanted to prove his mastery and cure him again, if there was 

 any one of them who wanted to live, and then that one would escape further 

 punishment, which his other comrades still would have to stand, but there was 

 no one of them who wanted to live. Then the devil-chaser cut all the fingers 

 off the prisoners and threaded them upon a string, which he delivered to their 

 sachem or ruler, who tied them around his neck. When this was done the devil- 

 chaser cut all their toes off, which he also delivered to their sachem. These he 

 tied around his legs at the knees. The sachem carried them on his body until 

 the flesh rotted away, but when the flesh had rotted off and dried away, he scrapes 

 the bones clean and white, when he threads them anew upon a ribbon and carries 

 them afterwards continually on his body, to show his great courage, — the greater 

 skeleton bones these Minqua sachems carry, the braver warriors they are supposed 

 to be. Then they brought forth fifteen bundles of reeds, like reeds here in Sweden, 

 which were saturated in fat. Of these they bound a bundle on the back of each 

 prisoner, turned them towards Virginia, set fire to the bundles, and told them to 

 run home again, where they had come from, and relate to their countrymen, how 

 well they had been treated and entertained among the Black Minquas. They 



