756 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 137 



huge proportions (Anghierra, 1912, vol. 2, pp. 267-269; Swanton 

 1922, p. 46). This, however, contains some distorted record of head 

 deformation. 



The ceremonial life, was, as usual, tied up with the social life and 

 social gatherings. Lawson gives about all that we know regarding 

 the latter : 



Their dances are of different natures ; and for every sort of dance they have 

 a tune, which is allotted for that dance; as, if it be a war dance, they have 

 a war-like song, wherein they express, with all the passion and vehemence 

 imagineable, what they intend to do with their enemies; how they will kill, 

 roast, scalp, beat, and make captive, such and such numbers of them ; and how 

 many they have destroyed before. All these songs are made new for every 

 feast; nor is one and the same song sung at two several festivals. Some one 

 of the nation, which has the best gift of expressing their designs, is appointed 

 by their king and war captains to make these songs. 



Others are made for feasts of another nature; as, when several towns, or 

 sometimes different nations have made peace with one another; then the song 

 suits both nations, and relates how the bad spirit made them go to war and 

 destroy one another; but it shall never be so again; but that their sons and 

 daughters shall marry together, and the two nations love one another, and be- 

 come as one people. 



They have a third sort of feasts and dances, which are always when the 

 harvest of corn is ended and in the spring. The one to return thanks to the 

 good spirit for the fruits of the earth; the other, to beg the same blessings 

 for the succeeding year. And to encourage the young men to labor stoutly in 

 planting their maiz and pulse, they set a sort of an idol in the field, which is 

 dressed up exactly like an Indian, having all the Indians habit, besides abun- 

 dance of wampum and their money, made of shells, that hangs about his 

 neck. The image none of the young men dare approach; for the old ones will 

 not suffer them to come near him, but tell them that he is some famous Indian 

 warrior that died a great while ago, and now is come amongst them to see if 

 they work well, which if they do, he will go to the good spirit and speak to 

 him to send them plenty of corn, and to make the young men all expert 

 hunters and mighty warriors. All this while, the king and old men sit round 

 the image and seemingly pay a profound respect to the same. One great help 

 to these Indians in carrying on these cheats, and inducing youth to do what 

 they please, is, the uninterrupted silence which is ever kept and observed with 

 all the respect and veneration imaginable. 



At these feasts which are set out with all the magnificence their fare allows 

 of, the masquerades begin at night and not before. There is commonly a fire 

 made in the middle of the house, which is the largest in the town, and is very 

 often the dwelling of their king or war captain; where sit two men on the 

 ground upon a mat; one with a rattle, made of a gourd, with some beans in it; 

 the other with a drum made of an earthern pot, covered with a dressed deer 

 skin, and one stick in his hand to beat thereon; and so they both begin the 

 song appointed. At the same time one drums and the other rattles, which is 

 all the artificial music of their own making I ever saw amongst them. To 

 these two instruments they sing, which carries no air with it, but is a sort of 

 unsavory jargon ; yet their cadences and raising of their voices are formed with 

 that equality and exactness that, to us Europeans, it seems admirable how 

 they should continue these songs without once missing to agree, each with the 

 others note and tune. 



