SwANTON] IND'IAKS OP THE SOUTHEASTEEN UNITED STATES 709 



Like the women of the Timucua, Caddo women were accustomed 

 to weep before the chief in order to get him to avenge them on 

 enemies of the tribe (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 3, p. 363 ; Swanton 1942, 

 pp. 160-162). 



CUSTOMS RELATING TO BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND THE DIVISION OF LABOR 



BETWEEN THE SEXES 



Strachey supplies us the following regarding Powhatan customs : 



The women are said to be easily delivered of child ; yet do they love childrene 

 very dearly. To make the children hardye, in the coldest mornings they wash 

 them in the rivers, and by paintings and oyntements so tanne their skynns that, 

 after a yeare or twoo no weather will hurt them; as also, to practize their 

 children in the use of ther bowes and arrowes, the mothers doe not give them 

 their breakfast in the morning before they have hitt a marke which she ap- 

 points them to shoot at: and comonly so cunning they will have them, as 

 throwing up in the ay re a piece of mosse, or some such light thinge, the boy 

 must with his arrowe meete yt in the fall, and hit it, or ells he shall not have 

 his breckf ast. ( Strachey, 1849, pp. 110-111. ) 



Later in life some children were subjected to a strange hardening 

 ceremony called by Beverley and Lawson the huskanaw. Strachey's 

 description of this parallels Smith's but seems to be somewhat more 

 intimate : 



In some part of the country they have yerely a sacrifice of children ; such a 

 one was at Quiyoughcohanock, some ten miles from James Towne, as also at 

 Kecoughtan, which Capt. Georg Percy was at, and observed. The manner of it 

 was, fifteene of the properest yonge boyes, betweene ten and fifteene yeares of 

 age, they paynted white ; having brought them forth, the people spent the f ore- 

 none in dauncing and singing about them with rattles. In the afternoone they 

 solemly led those childrene to a certayne tree appointed for the same purpose; 

 at the roote whereof, round about, they made the childrene to sitt downe, and 

 by them stood the most and ablest of the men, and some of them the fathers of the 

 childrene, as a watchfull guard, every one having a bastinado in his hand of 

 reedes, and these opened a lane betweene all along, through which were appointed 

 five young men to fetch those childrene ; and accordingly every one of the five 

 tooke his turne and passed through the guard to fetch a child, the guard fiercely 

 beating them the while with their bastinadoes, and shewing much anger and 

 displeasure to have the children so ravisht from them ; all which the young men 

 pacyently endured, receaving the blowes and defending the children, with theii 

 naked bodies, from the unmersifull stroakes, that paid them soundly, though the 

 children escaped. All the while sate the mothers and kinswomen afar off, look- 

 ing on, weeping and crying out very passionately, and some, in pretty wayment- 

 ing tunes, singing (as yt were) their dirge or funeral song, provided with matts, 

 skynnes, mosse, and dry wood by them, as things fitting their children's funeralls. 

 After the childrene were thus forceably taken from the guard, the guard possessed 

 (as yt were) with a vyolent fury, entred uppon the tree and tore yt downe, bowes 

 and braunches, with such a terrible fierceness and strength, that they rent the 

 very body of yt, and shivered yt in a hundred peeces, whereof some of them made 

 them garlandes for their heads, and some stuck of the braunches and leaves in 

 their haire, wreathinge them in the same, and so went up and downe as mourners, 



