MORE INDIAN CORN FOUND. 141 IX. we were very glad. We also digged in a place à CHAP. little further off, and found a bottle of oil. We went to another place, which we had seen before, and dig- 1620. ged, and found more corn, viz. two or three baskets full of Indian wheat, and a bag of beans, with a good many of fair wheat' ears. Whilst some of us were digging up this, some others found another heap of corn, which they digged up also; so as we had in all about ten bushels, which will serve us sufficiently for seed. And sure it was God's good providence that we found this corn, for else we know not how we should have done; for we knew not how we should find or meet with any. of the Indians, except it be to do us a mischief. Also, we had never in all likelihood seen a grain of it, if we had not made our first journey; for the ground was now covered with snow, and so hard frozen that we were fain with our curtlaxes 2 and short swords to hew and carve the ground a foot deep, and then wrest it up with levers, for we had forgot to bring other tools. Whilst we were in this employment, foul weather being towards, Master Jones was earnest to go aboard; but sundry of us desired to make further discovery, and to find out the Indians' habitations. So we sent home with him our weakest people, and some that were sick, and all the corn; and eighteen of us stayed still and lodged there that night, and desired that the shallop might return to us next day, and bring us some mattocks and spades with them. 30. The next morning, we followed certain beaten paths Nov. and tracks of the Indians into the woods, supposing they would have led us into some town or houses. After we had gone a while, we light upon a very 'Indian corn is still meant. F. 2 Cutlasses. 142 IX. INDIAN GRAVES. CHAP. broad beaten path, well nigh two foot broad. Then we lighted all our matches,' and prepared ourselves, 1620. concluding that we were near their dwellings. But, 30. in the end, we found it to be only a path made to drive deer in, when the Indians hunt, as we supposed. Nov. 4 3 When we had marched five or six miles into the woods, and could find no signs of any people, we returned again another way; and as we came into the plain ground, we found a place like a grave, but it was much bigger and longer than any we had yet seen. It was also covered with boards, so as we mused what it should be, and resolved to dig it up; where we found first a mat, and under that a fair bow, and then another mat, and under that a board about three quarters long, finely carved and painted; with three tines or broaches on the top, like a crown. Also between the mats we found bowls, trays, dishes, and such like trinkets. At length we came to a fair new mat, and under that two bundles, the one bigger, the other less. We opened the greater, and found in it a great quantity of fine and perfect red powder, and in it the bones and skull of a man. The skull had fine yellow hair still on it, and some of the flesh unconsumed. There was bound up with it a knife, a packneedle, and two or three old iron things. It was bound up in a sailor's 5 1 See note on page 125. "The Indians," says Wood, ch. 15, "have other devices to kill their game, as sometimes hedges a mile or two miles long, being a mile wide at one end, and made narrower and narrower by degrees, leaving only a gap of six foot long, over against which, in the day time, they lie lurking to shoot the deer which come through that narrow gut; in the night, at the gut of this hedge, they set deer traps." See the description of them on page 136. 3 In the original there - undoubtedly a typographical error. Of a yard. Tines, prongs; broaches, spits. Tines is a word still in common use in the interior of New England; e. g. the tines of a pitchfork. AN EMBALMED BODY. 143 IX. Nov. canvass cassock and a pair of cloth breeches.' The CHAP. red powder was a kind of embalment, and yielded a strong, but no offensive smell; it was as fine as any 1620. flour. We opened the less bundle likewise, and found 30. of the same powder in it, and the bones and head of a little child. About the legs and other parts of it was bound strings and bracelets of fine white beads.2 There was also by it a little bow, about three quarters long, and some other odd knacks.3 We brought sundry of the prettiest things away with us, and covered the corpse up again. After this we digged in sundry like places, but found no more corn, nor any thing else but graves. There was variety of opinions amongst us about the embalmed person. Some thought it was an Indian lord and king. Others said, the Indians have all black hair, and never any was seen with brown or yellow hair. Some thought it was a Christian of some special note, which had died amongst them, and they thus buried him to honor him. Others thought they had killed him, and did it in triumph over him. Whilst we were thus ranging and searching, two of the sailors which were newly come on the shore, by chance espied two houses, which had been lately dwelt in, but the people were gone. They having their 144 IX. Nov. INDIAN HOUSES. CHAP. pieces, and hearing nobody, entered the houses, and took out some things, and durst not stay, but came 1620. again and told us. So some seven or eight of us went 30. with them, and found how we had gone within a flight shot of them before. The houses were made with long young sapling trees bended, and both ends stuck into the ground. They were made round, like unto an arbour, and covered down to the ground with thick and well wrought mats; and the door was not over a yard high, made of a mat to open. The chimney was a wide open hole in the top; for which they had a mat to cover it close when they pleased. One might stand and go upright in them. In the midst of them were four little trunches knocked into the ground, and small sticks laid over, on which they hung their pots, and what they had to seethe. Round about the fire they lay on mats, which are their beds. The houses were double matted; for as they were matted without, so were they within, with newer and fairer mats. In the houses we found wooden bowls, trays, and dishes, earthen pots,3 hand-baskets made of crabshells wrought together; also an English pail or bucket; it wanted a bail, but it had two iron ears. There was also baskets of sundry sorts, bigger and some lesser, finer and some coarser. 2 Some were curiously little and mean. The pots they seethe their food in are made of clay or earth, almost in the form of an egg, the top taken off. Their dishes and spoons and ladles are made of wood, very smooth and artificial, and of a sort of wood not subject to split." Gookin, ch. 3, sec. 6. THE SECOND EXPLORING PARTY RETURN. 145 IX. Nov. wrought with black and white in pretty works, and CHAP. sundry other of their household stuff.' We found also two or three deer's heads, one whereof had been newly 1620. killed, for it was still fresh. There was also a com- 30. pany of deer's feet stuck up in the houses, harts' horns, and eagles' claws, and sundry such like things there was; also two or three baskets full of parched acorns,2 pieces of fish, and a piece of a broiled herring. We found also a little silk grass, and a little tobacco seed, with some other seeds which we knew not. Without was sundry bundles of flags, and sedge, bulrushes, and other stuff to make mats.3 There was thrust into a hollow tree two or three pieces of venison; but we thought it fitter for the dogs than for us. Some of the best things we took away with us, and left the houses standing still as they were. So it growing towards night, and the tide almost spent, we hasted with our things down to the shallop, and got aboard that night, intending to have brought some beads and other things to have left in the houses, in sign of peace, and that we meant to truck with them; but it was not done by means of our hasty coming away from Cape Cod. But so soon as we "Some of their baskets are made of rushes, some of bents, others of maize husks, others of a kind of silk grass, others of a kind of wild hemp, and some of barks of trees; many of them very neat and artificial, with the portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes and flowers upon them in colors." Gookin, ch. 3, sec. 6. 2 "They also dry acorns; and in case of want of corn, by much boiling they make a good dish of them; yea, sometimes in plenty of corn, do they eat these acorns for a no velty." Williams's Key, ch. 16. 3 "They make mats of several |