If an European comes to see them, or calls for lodging at their house, or wigwam, they give him the best place, and first cut. If they come to visit us, they salute us with an itch, which is as much as to say, "Good be to you" ; and set them down, which is mostly on the ground, close to their heels, their legs upright; it may be they speak not a word, but observe all passages : if you give them anything to eat or drink, well, for they will not ask; and be it little or much, if it be with kindness, they are well pleased, else they go away sullen, but say nothing.

They are great concealers of their own resentments, brought to it, I believe, by the revenge that hath been practiced among them: in either of these they are not exceeded by the Italians. A tragic instance fell out since I came into the country: a king's daughter thinking herself slighted by her husband, in suffering another woman to lie down between them, rose up, went out, plucked a root out of the ground, and eat it, upon which she immediately died; and for which, last week, he made an offering to her kindred, for atonement, and liberty of marriage; as two others did to the kindred of their wives, that died a natural death: for till widowers have done so, they must not marry again. Some of the young women are said to take undue liberty before marriage, for a portion; but when married, chaste: when with child they know their husbands no more, till delivered; and during their month, they touch no meat they eat but with a stick, lest they should defile it; nor do their husbands frequent them, till that time be expired.

But in liberality they excel ; nothing is too good for their friend: give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks: light of heart, strong affections, but soon spent: the most merry creatures that live, feast and dance perpetually; they never have much, nor want much : wealth circulateth like the blood, all parts partake; and though none shall want another hath, yet exact observers of property. Some kings have sold, others presented me with several parcels of land: the pay, or presents I made them, were not hoarded by the particular owners, but the neighboring kings and their clans being present when the goods were brought out, the parties chiefly concerned consulted what, and to whom they should give them. To every king then, by the hands of a person for that work appointed, is a proportion sent, so sorted and folded, and with that gravity, that is admirable. Then that king subdivideth it in like manner among his dependents, they hardly leaving themselves an equal share with one of their subjects: and be it on such occasions as festivals, or at their common meals, the kings distribute, and to themselves last: They care for little, because they want but little, and the reason is, a little contents them: in this they are sufficiently revenged on us; if they are ignorant of our pleasures, they are also free from our pains. They are not disquieted with bills of lading and exchange, nor perplexed with chancery-suits and exchequer reckonings. We sweat and toil to live: their pleasure feeds them ; I mean their hunting, fishing, and fowling, and this table is spread everywhere : they eat twice a day, morning and evening, their seats and table are the ground. Since the Europeans came into these parts, they are grown great lovers of strong liquors, rum especially; and for it exchange the richest of their skins and furs. If they are heated with liquors, they are restless till they have enough to sleep; that is their cry, "Some more, and I will go to sleep"; but, when drunk, one of the most wretched spectacles in the world.

In sickness, impatient to be cured, and for it give anything, especially for their children, to whom they are extremely natural: they drink at those times a teran, or decoction of some roots in spring-water; and if they eat any flesh, it must be of the female of any creature. If they die, they bury them with their apparel, be they man or woman, and the nearest of kin fling in something precious with them, as a token of their love: their mourning is blacking of their faces, which they continue for a year: they are choice of the graves of their dead; for lest they should be lost by time, and fall to common use, they pick off the grass that grows upon them, and heap up the fallen earth with great care and exactness.

These poor people are under a dark night in things relating to religion, to be sure the tradition of it; yet they believe a God and immortality, without the help of metaphysics; for they say, "There is a great king, that made them, who dwells in a glorious country to the southward of them ; and that the souls of the good shall go thither, where they shall live again." Their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico: their sacrifice is their first-fruits ; the first and fattest buck they kill goeth to the fire, where he is all burnt, with a mournful ditty of him that performeth the ceremony, but with such marvelous fervency, and labor of body, that he will even sweat to a foam. The other part is their cantico, performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts, two being in the middle that begin, and by singing, and drumming on a board, direct the chorus : their postures in the dance are very antic, and differing, but all keep measure. This is done with equal earnestness and labor, but great appearance of joy. In the fall, when the corn cometh in, they begin to feast one another : there have been two great festivals already, to which all come that will: I was at one myself; their entertainment was a great seat by a spring, under some shady trees, and twenty bucks, with hot cakes of new corn, both wheat and beans, which they make up in a square form, in the leaves of the stem, and bake them in the ashes; and after that they fall to dance. But they that go must carry a small present in their money, it may be six-pence, which is made of the bone of a fish ; the black is with them as gold, the white, silver; they call it all wampum.

Their government is by kings, which they call Sachama, and those by succession, but always of the mother's side: for instance, the children of him that is now king, will not succeed, but his brother by the mother, or the children of his sister, whose sons (and after them the children of her daughters) will reign, for no woman inherits : the reason they render for this way of descent, is, that their issue may not be spurious.