BULL. 30] 



POWHATAN 



301 



the language. The fact is that the de- 

 scendants of the old confederacy must 

 then have numbered not far from 1,000, 

 in several tribal bands, with a consider- 

 able percentage still speaking the lan- 

 guage. They now number altogether 

 about 700, including the Chickahominy, 

 Nandsemond, Pamunkey, and Mattapony 

 ((J. v.). with several smaller bands. 

 Henry Spelman, who was prisoner among 

 the Powhatan for some time, now in the 

 house of one chief and then in that of 

 another, mentions several interesting cus- 

 toms. The priests, he says, shaved the 

 right side of the head, leaving a little 

 lock at the ear, and some of them had 

 beards. The common people pulled out 

 the hairs of the beard as fast as they 

 grew. They kept the hair on the right 

 side of the head cut short, "tliat it 

 might not hinder them by flappinge 

 about their bowstringe when they draw 

 it to shoott; but ou ye other side they 

 let it grow and haue a long locke hang- 

 inge doune ther shoulder." Tattooing 

 was practised to some extent, especially 

 by the women. Among the better sort 

 it was the custom, when eating, for the 

 men to sit on mats round about the 

 house, to each of whom the women 

 brought a dish, as they did not eat to- 

 gether out of one dish. Their marriage 

 customs were similar to those among 

 other Indian tribes, but, according to 

 Spelman, "ye man goes not unto any 

 place to be married, but ye woman is 

 brought unto him wher he dwelleth." 

 If the presents of a young warrior were 

 accepted by his mistress, she was con- 

 sidered as having agreed to become his 

 wife, and, without any further explana- 

 tion to her family, went to his hut, 

 which became her home, and the cere- 

 mony was ended. Polygamy, Spelman 

 asserts, was the custom of the coun- 

 try, depending upon the ability to pur- 

 chase wives; Burk says, however, that 

 they generally had but one wife. Their 

 burial customs varied according to local- 

 ity and the dignity of the person. The 

 bodies of their chiefs were placed on 

 scaffolds, the flesh being first removed 

 from the bones and dried, then wrapped 

 with the bones in a mat, and the remains 

 were then laid in their order with those of 

 others who had previously died. For 

 their ordinary burials they dug deep holes 

 in the earth with very sharp stakes, and, 

 wrapping the corpse in the skins, laid it 

 upon sticks in the ground and covered it 

 with earth. 



They believed in a multitude of minor 

 deities, paying a kind of worship to 

 everything that was able to do them 

 harm beyond their prevention, such aa 

 fire, water, lightning, and thunder, etc. 

 They also had a kind of chief deity vari- 

 Qusly termed Okee, Quioccos, or Kiwasa, 



of whom they made images, which were 

 usually placed in their burial temples. 

 They believed in immortality, but the 

 , special abode of the spirits does not ap- 

 pear to have been well defined. The 

 office of werowance, or chieftaincy, ap- 

 pears to have been hereditary through 

 the female line, passing first to the 

 brothers, if there were any, and then 

 to the male descendants of sisters, but 

 never in the male line. The Chicka- 

 hominy, it is said, had no such custom 

 nor any regular chief, the priests and 

 leading men ruling, except in war, when 

 the warriors selected a leader. 



According to Smith, " their houses are 

 built like our arbors, of small young 

 sprigs, bowed and tied, and so close 

 covered with mats or the bark of trees 

 very handsomely, that notwithstanding 

 wind, rain, or weather they are as warm 

 as stoves, but very smoky, yet at the 

 top of the house there is a hole made for 

 the smoke to go into right over the fire." 

 According to White's pictures they were 

 oblong, with a rounded roof (see Habita- 

 iionx). They varied in length from 12 to 

 24 yds. , and some were as much as 36 yds. 

 long, though not of great width. They 

 were formed of poles or saplings fixed in 

 the ground at regular in tervals, w hich were 

 bent over from the sides so as to form an 

 arch at the top. Pieces running horizon- 

 tally were fastened with withes, to serve 

 as braces and as supports for bark, mats, 

 or other coverings. Many of their towns 

 were inclosed with palisades, consisting 

 of posts planted in the ground and stand- 

 ing 10 or 12 ft high. The gate was usu- 

 ally an overlapping gap in the circuit 

 of palisades. Where great strength and 

 security were required, a triple stockade 

 was sometimes made. These inclosing 

 walls sometimes encompassed the wdiole 

 town; in other cases only the chief's 

 house, the burial house, and the more im- 

 portant dwellings were thus surrounded. 

 They appear to have made considerable 

 advance in agriculture, cultivating 2 or 

 3 varieties of maize, beans, certain kinds 

 of melons or pumpkins, several varieties 

 of roots, and even 2 or 3 kinds of fruit 

 trees. 



They computed by the decimal system. 

 Their years were reckoned by winters, 

 cohonhs, as they called them, in imita- 

 tion of the note of the wild geese, which 

 came to them every winter. They di- 

 vided the year into five seasons, viz, the 

 budding or blossoming of spring; earing 

 of corn, or roasting-ear time; the sum- 

 mer, or highest sun; the corn harvest, 

 or fall of the leaf, and the winter, or 

 cohonk. Months were counted as moons, 

 without relation to the number in a year; 

 but they arranged them so that they re- 

 turned under the same names, as the 

 moon of stags, the corn moon, first and 



