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Authors: Joseph Bruchac
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as a salvage who had shown kindness, I made sure that no shot was fired. They came in and certified to us who were friends and who foes, saying that the kings of Pamaunkee, Aratahec, Youghtamong, and Matapoll would aid us in making peace with our contracted enemies. Before they left, they counseled us to cut down the long weeds round about our fort. At that I permitted myself a smile.
***
The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our fort. By the nineteenth, our ships were well laden with a great stock of shakes cut from the oaks and other trees. Such wood is of great value in trade, though we thought that the ore we had loaded was worth far more. The stone glittered with what certain of our company assured us was truly veins rich with gold. Little did we know then that our false gold was but antimony and those rocks worth no more than the weight of ballast. The true
treasure of Virginia would never be in gold and silver, but in a simpler trade that only wise men would perceive.
The following day, June twentieth, all received the communion. Our church was a simple one. We hung an awning made from an old sail to three or four trees to shadow us from the sun. Our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees. Rough though our cathedral was, surely God did most mercifully hear usâtill the continued inundations of mistaking directions, factions, and numbers of unprovided libertines near consumed us all, as the Israelites in the wilderness.
The day following, the salvages voluntarily desire peace; and Captain Newport returned for England with news, leaving in Virginia the first planters, one hundred who knew not what sufferings lay ahead.
11. POCAHONTAS: The Touch of a Woman's Hands
After Great Hare drove the Four Wind Giants away, he made the waters and in those waters placed the fish. Thus there would be food in the waters for the people. Great Hare made the plants of the earth, and on the earth he placed a Great Deer. Great Deer fed upon those plants as Great Hare intended.
The Four Wind Giants were still angry because Great Hare had not allowed them to eat the first people. Now what Great Hare had made caused them to be even more jealous. So those Four Wind Giants came flying from their homes in the four directions. They made spears from sharp poles. They hunted the Great Deer and killed it with their spears. They cut it into pieces and ate it, leaving only the hairs of the deer scattered upon the ground. Then the Four Winds once more went away.
Great Hare saw what the Four Wind Giants had done. He gathered up all of the hairs of the Great Deer. Then Great Hare began to chant and sing. As he sang and chanted, he scattered the hairs of Great Deer on the earth. Each hair, when it struck the earth, turned into a deer and ran away into the forest. So it is that there are many deer to this day.
NEPINOUGH
TIME OF CORN RIPENING
EARLY JUNE 1607
I HAVE BEEN TOLD that there are not as many deer now in our land as there were when my father was my age. Uttomatomakkin has said that it may be that the deer are not pleased because we do not treat them with enough respect. So the leaders of the deer people have urged them to move away from our lands. It is the sort of thing that a priest would say.
Rawhunt thinks there are fewer deer just because there are more of our people here than there were when my father was a child. Rawhunt says that even though those sicknesses that seem to follow the Tassantassuk have spread through our land twice during his life, killing many people, still our people have survived, survived and grown in number, like the hairs of the deer scattered upon the earth. If a man would be a real man, he must be a good hunter, and so our men kill many deer each year.
I have watched the hunters bring the skins in tribute to my father. As the Great Chief, my father has a right to eight of every ten deerskins. He never takes that many, for if
***
The fifteenth of June we had built and finished our fort. By the nineteenth, our ships were well laden with a great stock of shakes cut from the oaks and other trees. Such wood is of great value in trade, though we thought that the ore we had loaded was worth far more. The stone glittered with what certain of our company assured us was truly veins rich with gold. Little did we know then that our false gold was but antimony and those rocks worth no more than the weight of ballast. The true
treasure of Virginia would never be in gold and silver, but in a simpler trade that only wise men would perceive.
The following day, June twentieth, all received the communion. Our church was a simple one. We hung an awning made from an old sail to three or four trees to shadow us from the sun. Our walls were rails of wood, our seats unhewed trees, our pulpit a bar of wood nailed to two neighboring trees. Rough though our cathedral was, surely God did most mercifully hear usâtill the continued inundations of mistaking directions, factions, and numbers of unprovided libertines near consumed us all, as the Israelites in the wilderness.
The day following, the salvages voluntarily desire peace; and Captain Newport returned for England with news, leaving in Virginia the first planters, one hundred who knew not what sufferings lay ahead.
11. POCAHONTAS: The Touch of a Woman's Hands
After Great Hare drove the Four Wind Giants away, he made the waters and in those waters placed the fish. Thus there would be food in the waters for the people. Great Hare made the plants of the earth, and on the earth he placed a Great Deer. Great Deer fed upon those plants as Great Hare intended.
The Four Wind Giants were still angry because Great Hare had not allowed them to eat the first people. Now what Great Hare had made caused them to be even more jealous. So those Four Wind Giants came flying from their homes in the four directions. They made spears from sharp poles. They hunted the Great Deer and killed it with their spears. They cut it into pieces and ate it, leaving only the hairs of the deer scattered upon the ground. Then the Four Winds once more went away.
Great Hare saw what the Four Wind Giants had done. He gathered up all of the hairs of the Great Deer. Then Great Hare began to chant and sing. As he sang and chanted, he scattered the hairs of Great Deer on the earth. Each hair, when it struck the earth, turned into a deer and ran away into the forest. So it is that there are many deer to this day.
NEPINOUGH
TIME OF CORN RIPENING
EARLY JUNE 1607
I HAVE BEEN TOLD that there are not as many deer now in our land as there were when my father was my age. Uttomatomakkin has said that it may be that the deer are not pleased because we do not treat them with enough respect. So the leaders of the deer people have urged them to move away from our lands. It is the sort of thing that a priest would say.
Rawhunt thinks there are fewer deer just because there are more of our people here than there were when my father was a child. Rawhunt says that even though those sicknesses that seem to follow the Tassantassuk have spread through our land twice during his life, killing many people, still our people have survived, survived and grown in number, like the hairs of the deer scattered upon the earth. If a man would be a real man, he must be a good hunter, and so our men kill many deer each year.
I have watched the hunters bring the skins in tribute to my father. As the Great Chief, my father has a right to eight of every ten deerskins. He never takes that many, for if
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