614 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



Talomeco. At the doorway, Garcilaso's informants stated, there were 

 12 statues of giants made of wood arranged in pairs, one on each side, 

 and diminishing in size inward so as to create an apparent perspective. 

 Each pair held a different type of weapon all of which have been dis- 

 cussed elsewhere. Around the four sides of the temple inside were two 

 rows of statues, one of men and one of women. These were life-size. 

 The coflSns of the dead were placed below on a raised platform and 

 above each was a wooden image of the deceased said to have been very 

 lifelike (Garcilaso, 1723, pp. 132-133). 



In Virginia and North Carolina we encounter similar images in 

 the sacred buildings. Strachey says : 



Their principall temple, or place of superstition, is at Vtamussack, at Pamunky. 

 Neere unto the towne, with in the woods, is a chief holie howse, proper to Powha- 

 tan, upon the top of certaine red sandy hills, and it is accompanied with two other 

 sixty feet in length, filled with images of their kings and devills, and tombes of 

 the predicessors. This place they count so holy as that none but the priests and 

 kings dare come therein. (Strachey, 1849, p. 90.) 



Smith has a parallel account (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 109). 

 Beverley (1705, p. 31) notes it also, but represents the images as being 

 those of the gods only. 



Unlike the former inhabitants of Talomeco, these Indians thus had 

 images of their supernatural beings in their temples. Barlowe heard 

 of an "idol" at Roanoke, but it is uncertain whether this was really in 

 a temple or a private house (Burrage, 1906, p. 236). There can be no 

 doubt, however, of the place of installation of the idols of which Hariot 

 speaks : 



They thinke that all the gods are of human shape, & therefore they represent 

 them by images in the formes of men, which they call Kewasowok, one alone is 

 called Kewds; Them they place in houses appropriate or temples which they call 

 Mathicdmuck ; Where they woorship, praie, sing, and make manie times offerings 

 vnto them. In some Machicomuck we haue scene but one Kewas, in some two, 

 and in other some three; The common sort thinke them to be also gods. (Hariot, 

 1893, p. 38.) 



Hariot repeats the same facts, with some amplifications, in his de- 

 scription of his plate 21 : 



The people of this contrie haue an Idol, which they call Kiwasa : yt is earned of 

 woode in lengthe 4. foote whose heade is like the heades of the people of Florida, 

 the face is of a flesh colour, the brest white, the rest is all blacke, the thighes are 

 also spottet with whitte. He hath a chayne abowt his necke of white beades, 

 betweene which are other Rownde beades of copper which they esteeme more then 

 golde or siluer. This Idol is placed in the temple of the town of Secotan, as the 

 keper of the kings dead corpses. Somtyme they haue two of thes idoles in theyr 

 churches, and sometine 3. but neuer aboue, which they place in a darke corner 

 wher they shew terrible. (Hariot, 1893, pi. 21.) 



And similar are the accounts we get of the Chesapeake Bay tribes : 



