mooney] the NAHYSSAN. 31 



bouor, and .solemnly consulted their ''medicine" to know whether they 

 should not admit him to their council and adopt him into their tribe 

 and induce him to stay with them by giving him for a wife the daughter 

 of one of their principal men. With some difficulty he waived the 

 honor and got away by promising to return to them before many months 

 (Lederer, 3), a promise which, however, he failed to keep. 

 . In Nahyssan we have the Monahassauugh of Smith, the Hanohaskie 

 of Batts, and the Yesang of Hale. The last is evidently the generic 

 root word, the prefix ifo, Mona., or Na in the other forms probably giv- 

 ing a specific local application to the common term. Thus from Led- 

 erer's statement that Sapon was a Nahyssan town we understand 

 that the Saponi were a subtribe or division of the people who knew 

 themselves as Yesang. Pintahaj was the local name of another tribe 

 or settlement included under the same generic designation. This is 

 the first mention of the Saponi, the Tutelo being first named the follow- 

 ing year by Batts. 



TheNahyssan chief is described as an absolute monarch. The people 

 were tall, warlike, and rich. Lawson also, thirty years later, describes 

 them as tall and well built. In their little temples or medicine lodges 

 they had large quantities of pearls, which they had taken in war from 

 the southern tribes bordering on Florida, and which were as highly 

 prized as among the whites. Their tribal ensign consisted of three 

 arrows (Lederer, 4). In this connection Beverley states that the Indians 

 of each Virginian tribe had a particular tribal mark painted on the 

 shoulder to distinguish themselves when away from home. A common 

 tribal mark consisted of one, two, or three arrows arranged to point 

 upward, downward, or side wise, and the Virginia assembly found this 

 system of aboriginal heraldry of such practical use in distinguishing 

 friends from enemies that they had these designs stamped on metal 

 badges which they distributed in quantities to each of the friendly 

 tribes, and also enacted a law that no Indians should come among the 

 settlements without them (Beverley, 3). 



Lederer gives some general information in regard to these interior 

 tribes which may be of interest here. In his hints to traders he advised 

 them to carry, to those nearest the frontier, trading cloth (of which a 

 yard and a half sufficed to make an Indian inatchcoat or mantle), 

 together with axes, hoes, knives, scissors, and all kinds of edged tools. 

 Arms and ammunition would be eagerly purchased, but this trade was 

 contraband, notwithstanding which it appears from various statements 

 that some of the tribes were already well supplied in this respect. For 

 the remoter tribes the best trading articles were small mirrors, pictures, 

 beads, bracelets, knives, scissors, and all kinds of gaudy trinkets and 

 toys that were light and easily carried. The goods were frequently 

 paid for by the Indians with their native wampum, which he describes 

 as their current coin, or with pearls or veroiilion, or sometimes, in the 

 south, with pieces of silver obtained from the Indians adjoining the 

 Spaniards. He shows himself informed in all the methods of wheedling 



