730 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 



Chiefs among the Virginia Algonquians were so powerful that they 

 were able to inflict corporal punishment on guards who failed in their 

 duty, and they did not hesitate to use poison in disposing of rivals. The 

 Powhatan Indians stole freely from the English but very much less 

 from one another. A considerable item on this head is added by 

 Spelman : 



Concerninge ther lawes my years and understandinge, made me the less to 

 looke after bycause I thought that Infidels wear lawless yet when I saw sum 

 put to death I asked the cause of ther offence, for in the time that I was with y* 

 Patomecke I saw 5 executed 4 for murtlier of a child (id est) y" mother, and tow 

 other that did the fact with hir and a 4 for consealing it as he passed by, beinge 

 bribed to hould his pease, and one for robbinge a traueler of coper and beades for 

 to steale ther neyburs corne or copper is death, or to lye one with anothers wife is 

 death if he be taken in the manner. 



Thos that be conuicted of capitall offences are brought into a playne place 

 before y^ Kinges house when then he laye, which was at Pomunkeye the chefest 

 house he hath wher one or tow apoynted by the Kinge did bind them hand and 

 foote, which being dunn a great tier was made. Then cam the officer to thos that 

 should dye, and with a shell cutt off ther long locke, which they weare on the 

 leaft side of ther heade, and hangeth that on a bowe before the Kings house. 

 Then thos for murther wear Bfeaten with staues till ther bonus weare broken and 

 beinge aliue weare flounge into the fier, the other for robbinge was knockt on y^ 

 heade and beinge deade his bodye was burnt. (Smith, John, Arber ed., 1884, pp. 

 cx-cxi.) 



Individuals who had excited Powhatan's wrath were treated as 

 follows : 



He caused certaine malefactors, at what tyme Captain Smith was with him, 

 (and to the sight whereof Captain Smith, for some purpose, was brought,) to be 

 bound hand and foote, when certaine officers appointed thereunto, having from 

 many fiers gathered great store of burning coales, raked the coales rounde in 

 forme of a cockpitt, and in the midst they cast the offenders to broyle to death. 

 Some tymes he causeth the headds of them that offend to be layd upon the aulter 

 or sacrificing stone, and one or two, with clubbs, beat out their braynes. When 

 he would punish any notorious enemye or trespasser, he causeth him to be tyed 

 to a tree, and with muscle-shells or reedes the executioner cutteth off his joints 

 one after another, ever casting what is cutt off into the fier ; then doth he proceede 

 with shells and reedes to case the skyn from his head and face ; after which they 

 rip up his belly, teare out his bowells, and so burne him with the tree and 

 all . . . Howbeit, his ordinary correction is to have an offender, whome he will 

 only punish and not put to death, to be beatten with cudgells as the Turks doe. 

 We have seen a man kneeling on his knees, and, at Powhatan's command, two 

 men have beaten him on the bare skyn till the skyn have ben all bollen and blis- 

 tered, and all on a goare blood, and till he hath fallen seuceles in a swound, and 

 yet never cryed, complayned, nor seemed to ask pardon, for that they seldom 

 doe. (Strachey, 1849, p. 52.) 



Such tortures, when inflicted by an arbitrary potentate of whatever 

 color, may only euphemistically be called punishments. 

 Among Siouan tribes retaliation was the common method of treating 



