Neither Williams nor Eliot entertained such inhuman fancies. They believed that the Indians of New England as partakers in their common humanity, were entitled to their kindly regard. Since their day, little has been added to our knowledge of the origin of the Indian tribes. A better study of the Asiatic nations confirms the old opinion that the primitive American races were the offshoots or emigrants from some of them. Their physiognomy-their barbarous trophies,' the hanging up of the hands and heads of enemies-their lunar months," their holding tribes and families, subject to vengeance for the acts and crimes of their members-their habits of long protracted mourning-were but some of their inheritances from Central Asia, in an early period of the world. In the present state of ethnological science, we may be content to leave the subject where Williams left it, and to conclude with him that "their originall and descent" are from Adam and Noah, "but for their later descent and whence they came into those parts, it seems as hard to finde, as to finde the well head of some fresh streame, which running many miles out of the countrey to the salt ocean, hath met with many mixing streames by the way."

In recent years, there have been attempts to estimate the period of their sojourn upon American soil. Those who have last engaged in such enquiries have met with little better success than their predecessors. The Indians of New England

left no historical monuments and had no ancient traditions which indicated an abode of many centuries upon the Atlantic seaboard. The facts upon which modern conjectures (we can

(1) Key, p. 60.

(2) Key, pp. 69-70.

(3) Key, pp. 45, 76. the offender.

In case of robbery, justice was sought from the nation of Gen. Gookin says he wrote in 1674-all the family are concerned to revenge robbery or murder, unless satisfied by a payment of wampumpeage. 1st series, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. I. 149.

(4) Key, p. 19.

(5) Key, p. 19. Their isolation had been so long continued that they had lost all traditions of any other races of mankind. They knew nothing of any other people but themselves.

scarcely call them inferences) have been founded, are themselves uncertain. We are still doubtful whether the Narragansetts were in the seventeenth century still as powerful as their fathers, or whether they were at their first contact with Englishmen the mere remnant of a race once numerous, but now become stationary, or, under unfavourable social or sanitary conditions, slowly declining towards extinction. Their mythical legends of their origin were not peculiar to themselves. The story of the origin of Canonicus, has its counterpart in the traditions of Western tribes, and is evidently a survival not from a recent generation, but from centuries long gone by. Their barbaric pride of race admitted no equality or kindred with other nations. It distinguished them most signally from all the African tribes, and has ever been the chief obstacle to their civilisation. It was evidently an inheritance from a conquering ancestry.

A far more practical question for the first settlers of NewEngland respected the numbers of the as yet unknown people with whom they had to deal. Whatever may have been their relative importance in pre-historic times, it would seem that at the arrival of the English in Massachusetts the Narragansetts were the largest and most powerful of the Indian tribes. "The Bay people" planted themselves in a region recently depopulated (A. D. 1610-12), and then comparatively unoccupied. The Narragansetts had never been reduced by pestilence or humbled by defeat. They were a most formidable obstacle in the way of civilisation. Their numbers were never accurately known, but only estimated by men of whom some were eager for marvels, but quite unaccustomed to statistics. These estimates may have been from traditions of an earlier time, or else fictions intended to overawe the settlers. Gen. Gookin of Massachu

(1) Key, p. 28—"the chief people in the land." The charter of Charles II recites that the Narragansetts "are the most potent princes and people of all that country."

(2) Johnson's "Wonder-working Providence." Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d series, Vol. II. Book 2, chap. 10, p. 72, says: The Mattachusets "were a populous nation consisting of 30,000 able men, now brought to lesse then 300." (3) 1st series, Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. I. 148.

6.

setts,' says that the Narragansitts were reckoned, in former times, able to arm for war more than five thousand men as ancient Indians say." They never made any such display of force during their historic period. Williams fell into no such exaggeration, but after six years' abode among them he indulged in no conjectures, and seems to have gained no certain information., Their wandering life made an enumeration of the Narragansetts difficult. The appearance of the same families at so many separate points, led to an overestimate of their numbers. The nation was finally crushed and broken down, by the loss of not more than from one to two thousand men. After that, no one was curious as to what they once had been, until enquiry was too late. It was sufficient for the first settlers of Mooshassuc to know that the Narragansetts were greatly their superiors in numbers and in force and that thus it was necessary to observe a kindly and cautious policy towards them.

Under such circumstances, Williams began his study of the people whom he hoped to reclaim and elevate. His first observation was, that whatever the duration of their residence, it had not developed any ability to avail themselves of the resources of their country, or even to guard themselves against the rigours of its climate. Their wigwams, even such as sheltered two families, were but small, and displayed nothing which could be called carpentry. The wigwam of a single household was "a little round house," "fourteen or sixteen foot over," and larger in proportion, for more occupants. These structures were merely poles set up and supported by cords; stretched out in a

(1) Gookin, p. 148. Both Plymouth and Massachusetts were depopulated about 1612-13. The Indians of Massachusetts Bay could formerly arm for war about 3000 men of whom not 300 are now left besides women and children.

(2) Gookin, p. 148.-"All do agree they were a great people."

(3) Key, p. 28. There were many villages, "it may be a dozen in 20 miles travell." The extent or population of one of these villages he does not mention.

(4) Key, p. 48.

circle and fastened to the ground. These were covered without, and lined within, with mats, bark or skins-with an aperture in the top, as a substitute for a chimney. The occupants had little constructive or inventive skill, even in the most needful arts of life. But a few of them learned the use of English tools. Their implements were of the stone age-arrowheads, hatchets, mortars to beat corn in,' and chisels-for these they had but few uses. All iron instruments were "gotten from the English.' After some years, a few among them gained a little skill in the use of English boards and nails, and did some small work for themselves. Here and there, one could fabricate an English chest. Their chief textile manufacture was of fishing nets of hemp. They also made of it, baskets and bags or sacks," some of which would hold five or six bushels of their domestic stores, and which served instead of shelves. They had also, "sedgie mats" to sleep on, and embroidered ones made by women, for the lining of their houses. The highest mechanical skill of the men was displayed in burning out, and rudely fashioning chestnut or other timber trees, into canoes, some of them carrying three or four, and some forty men. Their perseverance excited the admiration of Williams. A native went into the woods, with a stone hatchet, and a basket of corn, built a hut, and felled a chestnut tree. He "continues burning and hewing," "lying there at his work alone," "until he hath within ten or twelve dayes," finished and launched his boate; with which afterward hee ventures out to fish in the ocean." "I have known thirty or forty of their canowes filled with men, and neere as many more of their enemies in a sea fight." These vessels were capable of

(1) Key, pp. 50, 51.

7

(2) They called the English by a word which signifies "knive-men” and by another which signifies "coat-men." Key, pp. 51, 60.

(3) Key, p. 52.

(4) Key, p. 102.

(5) Key, p. 50.

(6) Key, p. 40.
(7) Key, p. 98.
(8) Key, p. 100.

voyages to Block Island, and by their means the Narragansetts preserved their supremacy over it. Being expert swimmers they could land everywhere upon the shores. With such apparatus they were practiced codfishers. They cooked and ate the head and brains-the best parts of the bass,' and had good winter stores of many sorts of smoked and dried fish. They hung up their fish in the smoke of their wigwams. The manufacture of salt and its use in preserving fish and meats, they learned only from the English.

The chief native agricultural implement was a wooden "howe" (hoe), its blade consisting of a huge clamshell. With the mention of this, and of their skill in making and carving of tobacco pipes, with ornamental shapes and designs, ends Williams's enumeration of the mechanical works of the Narragansetts.

They had neither "clothes, bookes, nor letters." They had among them neither songs nor musical instruments,* being surpassed in this respect by the rudest African tribes. Neither their religious nor their martial emotions had any rythmical expression,-these finding utterance in incoherent shrieks, howls and outcries. Nor were there among them any, even the briefest, historical inscriptions or memorials. They had no arts" and when they first began to trade with Europeans, had no conception of money. The making of wampumpeag had long been familiar, and by strings of it, with colours variously combined, they sent messages of friendship, or threatening,—war, or peace. It seems that the Dutch first taught the Indians to use it as an instrument of trade. In their ignorance of the comforts of civilisation, the Indians cultivated an indifference to suffering. Both in cold and heat, they were used to sleeping in

(1) Key, pp. 102-3.

(2) Key, p. 92.

(3 Key, pp. 20, 22, 42.

(4) Key, p. 38.

(5) Key, p. 42.

(6) See "Indian money," by W. B. Weeden, "Johns Hopkins University Studies," 2d series, Nos. 8-9.

(7) Sec Hubbard, General History, chap. 17, p. 100.