SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 615 



In their temples, they have his image [the image of Oke] evill favouredly 

 carved, and then painted and adorned with chaines, copper, and beades, and 

 covered with a skin, in such manner as the deformity may well suit with such 

 a God. (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 109.) 



At the 4 corners [of Powhatan's treasure house at Orapakes] stand 4 Images 

 as Sentinels, one of a Dragon, another of a Beare, the 3 like a Leopard, and the 

 fourth like a giantlike man : all made evill favordly, according to their best work- 

 manship. (Smith, John, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 114.) 



In his general description of Virginia temples, Strachey states they 

 had: 



At the west end a spence or chauncell from the body of the temple, with hollow 

 wyndings and pillers, whereon stand divers black imagies, fashioned to the shoul- 

 ders, with their faces looking downe the church, and where within their wero- 

 ances, upon a kind of beere of reedes, lye buryed ; and under them, apart, in a 

 vault low in the ground (as a more secrett thing), vailed with a matt, sitts their 

 Okeus, an image ill-favouredly carved, all black dressed, with chaynes of perle, 

 the presentment and figure of that god ( say the priests unto the laity ) . ( Strachey, 

 1849, p. 83.) 



Later Beverley entered clandestinely into one of the Powhatan 

 temples and discovered a wooden image made in sections, supposed by 

 him to be an "idol." 



Round about the House, at some distance from it, were set up Posts, with 

 Faces carved on them, and painted. (Beverley, 1705, bk. 3, pp. 28-31.) 



These posts belong to a somewhat different type set up outside of 

 or away from the buildings. Elsewhere he speaks of these more at 

 length : 



The Indians have Posts fix'd round their Quioccasan, which have Mens Faces 

 carved upon them, and are painted. They are likewise set up round some of their 

 other celebrated places, and make a Circle for them to dance about, on certain 

 solemn occasions. (Beverley, 1705, bk. 3, p. 46.) 



Hariot is the earliest writer to mention them : 



The place where they meet (from all about) is a broade playne, abowt the 

 which are planted in the grownde certayne posts carued with heads like to the 

 faces of Nonnes couered with theyr vayles. (Hariot, 1893, pi. 18.) 



Lawson (1860, pp. 285-286) says that the Indians of the Piedmont 

 country set up "idols" in their fields to encourage the young men in 

 their work, and we have references to such images from a much earlier 

 date, the period of the Ayllon settlement in South Carolina. Accord- 

 ing to Peter Martyr, the Spaniards found, in the courtyard of a gigan- 

 tic chief called Datha, "two idols as large as a three-year-old child, one 

 male and one female." He adds : "These idols are both called Inam- 

 ahari, and had their residence in the palace." They were connected 

 also with the horticultural activities of the people. Farther on the 

 same chronicler says : 



Another feast is celebrated every year when a roughly carved wooden statute is 

 carried into the country and fixed upon a high pole planted in the ground. This 

 first pole is surrounded by similar ones, upon which people hang gifts for the gods. 



