Pocahontas (7 page)

"
Wingapo,
" Captain Newport called to them.

"
Wingapo chemuze,
" the Wynauks replied, greeting us with much rejoicing. There the people of the kingdom of Wynauk entertained us with dances. The King of Wynauk is at odds with the King of Paspihae and for that we anchored peacefully all night.

By diverse small habitations we passed as we continued upriver. The king of another village, Aratahec, gave us a guide who was Aratahec's brother-in-law. This salvage, Nauiraus, proved to be a trusty friend. In six days, we arrived at a town called Powhatan, some twelve houses pleasantly seated on a hill. Before it are three fertile isles, about it many of their cornfields, a place pleasant and strong by nature. The prince of this place is called Tanxpowhatan and his people Powhatans. No further might we proceed because of the rocks and isle; there is not passage for a small boat.

Upon one of the little islets at the mouth of the falls, Captain Newport set up a cross. It bore the inscription
Jacobus Rex. 1607
and Newport's own name below. At the erecting we prayed for our king and our own prosperous success. Then,
with a great shout, we proclaimed our great James the true king of all this land.

Nauiraus began to admire the meaning of our setting up the cross with such a shout. Our captain calmed his suspicion, telling him that the two arms of the cross signified King Tanxpowhatan and himself. The fastening of it in the middle stood for their united league, and the shout was our reverence we did to Powhatan. This cheered our gullible guide not a little.

During our return, the people in all parts kindly entreated us till we were within twenty miles of James Town. Then our guide, Nauiraus, took some conceit.

"I can go no further with you," he said, his voice most agitated. "I will see you again in three days."

When we placed him upon the shore, he ran so swiftly into the forest that our captain became worried. We made all haste home, fearing some disastrous hap at the fort. It fell out as expected. God had not blessed those at the fort as well as He had blessed the discoverers.

Seeing our absence, the salvages saw a sure opportunity to carry the fort. Upon the fifth and twentieth day of May, above two hundred of them came with their king and gave a furious assault. No sentries had been set. Our men were at work and not ready, their arms in dryfats. The spring grasses had also grown so tall all around our fort that the naturals were able to creep so close that our men were well within the range of their bows when the salvages at last burst from cover with a shout.

"Their cry," Jehu Robinson said to me as he reported the events of that fight, "was so terrible that I near fell down in fright."

Much of the fighting that followed then was hand-to-hand, for our company's lack of ready arms.

"Grim work 'twas indeed," Robinson said, "made e'en worse
by them cries of battle from the salvages that ne'er did cease as they thrust for'ard with fierce intent."

The salvages, a very valiant people, came up almost into the fort, and shot through the tents in this skirmish which endured hot about an hour. Diverse of them were surely killed, but they tugged off the dead on their backs.

Seeing what was happening, the cannoneers aboard the
Susan Constant
aimed their guns at the mass of salvages seeking to thrust their way into our fort. Though the ships' ordnance with their small shot daunted them, they might yet have overthrown our defenders, for each salvage that fell was replaced by two more eager to join the battle.

At last, upon the ship, someone among the cannoneers bethought him to load bar shot, two halves of a cannon ball joined together by a long iron spike. That crossbar, fired into the trees above the heads of the naturals, struck down a great bough among them and caused them to retire.

We found seventeen injured and a boy slain by the salvages. Four of the council that had stood in front were hurt in maintaining the fort. Our president, Master Wingfield, spoke loudly.

"I have shown myself valiant," he said, "valiant indeed."

Indeed, he said this so often to whomever harked that he seemed, at the least, to convince himself. Our brave president had one shot clean through his beard, yet 'scaped hurt. Perhaps this is of no surprise, for Jehu Robinson also noted to me how well Master Wingfield succeeded in always placing himself as far to the back as possible throughout the fray.

Hereupon, I must note, the president was contented that the fort should be pallisadoed, the ordnance mounted, his men armed and exercised.

Great Hare lives in his home in the sunrise. There he made the first women and men. He kept them at first in a great bag. It was well that he did so, for the Four Wind Giants smelled those first women and men and came howling to the lodge of Great Hare. The Wind Giants were then much as they are now, without shape or form, but with the power to knock down great trees and fly through the air with a sound so great that it is frightening.

In they came, howling from each of the directions, from the Winter Land, the Sunrise Land, the Land of Summer, and the Dark Land.

"
We are hungry," the Four Wind Giants howled. "Open your bag. Give us those new ones you have made. Open your bag so we can get at them. We will eat them.
"

Great Hare, though, was not frightened. "No," he said. "Go away.
"

And the Four Wind Giants did just that.

NEPINOUGH
TIME OF DIGGING ARROW ROOTS
EARLY JUNE
1607

E
VEN THOUGH
I
HAVE
reason to ask more questions than usual today, I am one who always asks many questions. I have heard this said by my father, by Rawhunt, by all of my mothers at one time or another. They do not criticize me when they say this. They just make mention of it in the way one might notice that water is wet.

For example, while other children just listened this past winter while Uttomatomakkin told the story of how we were made, as soon as the old priest stopped to take a breath, I was the one who had to say:

"Why was it that Great Hare made us and not Ahone?"

"It is the way it is," Uttomatomakkin said to me. His voice was patient as he stroked the hairs on his chin with his left hand. Among our people, only the priests allow hair to remain on their faces. All other men pull those hairs out with clamshell tweezers. Uttomatomakkin seems rather proud of those hairs on his chin.

He is the head of all the priests and is so much a favorite of my father's that he is married to one of my father's sisters. Whenever my father has a serious question about the future, he turns to Uttomatomakkin, who then goes into the sacred
yihacan,
the god's house, and speaks to Okeus. Within the circle of cornmeal, he lays out kernels of corn in lines and counts them. Then he is able to see what things are going to happen. But even a priest, Uttomatomakkin has told me, does not always understand what he sees. Many things, he says, are beyond the understanding of humans. So I was not surprised when he answered my question the way he did. Just like a priest!

"Ah," I said, as if I was satisfied. "But I have another question."

"Of course. I know you will ask it." He stroked his chin hairs again as he looked down at me.

I squinted up at him. Was he making fun of me? There was no trace of a smile on his face, which was still as smooth as a child's, even though he has seen more than eighty returnings of the leaves.

"Who did Great Hare make first? Was it a man or a woman?"

"Why do you ask, Amonute?" Uttomatomakkin replied.

For a priest, answering a question with another question is a common way to respond. Then Uttomatomakkin did smile.

I have always known that he finds me amusing. I do not mind. He is an uncle to me and even funnier than Rawhunt when he wishes to be. Others fear him because he is so close to Okeus, but I do not.

"I ask because it seems to me that it would first have been a woman. After all, it is women who give birth to men and not the other way around."

"Then it may have been that way," Uttomatomakkin said, raising both hands and lifting them toward the sky.

Again, it was a typical answer for a
quiyoughsokuk
to make. The priests do not like anyone to know more than they do about such things as medicine or the power of the spirits. If I were not who I am, the favorite daughter of Powhatan, Uttomatomakkin would not say that much to me. But, then again, who else would ask the sorts of questions that I ask? Like the meaning of my name, questions follow me wherever I go.

Today it was a very sad day. As I walked around the village, I kept thinking of the story of Great Hare and how he protected the first people. I could hear women mourning for a loved one who had been killed by the thunder sticks. Nearby, in the forest, other members of the family of the man who had
died were building a burial scaffold on which the body of the departing one would be placed.

Two days ago men from five different villages decided to make an attack on the Tassantassuk. The Coatmen had been wandering around like foolish children shoving sticks at the nests of hornets. They had been going where they should not go, paddling their backward canoe up and down our river, putting up their strange crosses, and confusing people with their actions by promising friendship and then making the same pledge to the enemies of those they had sworn they befriended. They also were insulting to the leaders of our villages, treating them like fools or children.

Opposunoquonuske is the weroansqua of the Appamattuck. Her brother is the werowance, but her voice in council is stronger than his. She is a beautiful woman, as big as a bear, strong and brave. The Coatmen were wise enough to give her gifts, but she did not like their manner. When they fired off their thunder sticks to impress her people, the Coatmen seemed disappointed that she showed no fear. Opposunoquonuske was offended by the smell of the Tassantassuk.

"Standing close to them," she said, "is like being downwind from one of the black-and-white-striped ones."

She would not allow them to sit near her.

When I first heard this, I found it hard to believe that men could smell that badly.

"Do they not bathe every day as we do?" I asked Rawhunt.

Rawhunt shook his head. "Amonute," he said, "listen, listen. In this way, at least, these new Tassantassuk are like the Espaniuk They seem to fear, yes, fear the touch of water on their bodies. They never wash themselves or remove their heavy coats." Rawhunt laughed. "Perhaps, perhaps it is because they have such love for all the little crawling things that live in the
fur on their faces and on their bodies. They do not want to disturb their tiny chums by bathing. I see you shake your head, but what I say is true. It is true. I met some of them when I was younger. Long ago, long ago as it was, I still remember how badly they smelled. Indeed, if you are downwind, it is always easy to tell when a Tassantassa is coming your way.
Waugh
, you can smell him long before you can see him. Long before you can see him. Long before."

Opechancanough, who is my father's younger brother, has also had dealings with Tassantassuk. One of his closest friends was killed by a party of Coatmen led by a very tall man. Another of his friends was wounded by the small stones thrown by a thunder stick and now walks with a limp.

"Those Coatmen," Opechancanough said, "attacked them for no reason." He mistrusts all of these newcomers.

"Hunh," he said to me when I asked if it was true that Coatmen had an unpleasant odor. "Hear what I tell you, my niece. They are foul-smelling ones, it is true. But the things they do are worse than their smell. We should drive all of them away from our lands and waters."

***

In fact, it was my uncle, Opechancanough, who told me how the attack on the Tassantassuk came about. In only a few handfuls of days the Coatmen had upset and insulted many people. They had angered so many people that villages that had been fighting one another for a generation decided to join together in the attack. Men from the Chiskiacks, the Appamattucks, the Paspaheghs, the Quiyoughcahannocks, and the Wyanocks all took part. They thought that their attack would succeed quickly. They believed that they would kill a few of the Coatmen and discourage the rest so much that they would get
into their big swan canoes and go away. They chose a time when the Coatmen who seemed to be the best fighters were away from their camp.

The Tassantassuk turned out to be better fighters than our men had expected. A few of the Coatmen tried to hide, especially one fat Coatman whose beard was so large that an arrow stuck in it. But others stood and faced our warriors bravely. Even when they were wounded, they kept fighting. Their thunder sticks were bad, but our men learned that they could drop to the ground and avoid being hit, as one does when an arrow is fired. Our men were close to victory when the swan boats themselves roared thunder, and our fighters had to retreat. Even though they were beaten, they did not run. They sang and shouted defiance as they backed away. They carried with them all those who had been struck by the Coatmen's weapons.

Twelve men were badly injured. Seven others were killed. One of them, though he had recently gone to live among his friends at Appamattuck, came from our great town. His mother and sisters are still here. His body had been brought to them at dawn by his companions. It was the voices of those who loved him that I heard weeping and crying. Their faces blackened the dark color of grief, they wailed for the loss of their beloved one.

Wearing his finest jewelry, necklaces, and earrings of shells and copper, wrapped in deerskins, he would be placed on his burial scaffold before Kefgawes, the Great Sun, reached the middle of the sky. His face would never be seen again, not even in the faces of his children. He had died so young that he had not yet fathered a child. So the women of his family cried and cried.

Hearing them cry, I wondered again why it was that men had to fight one another. I do not like war. Wars are like those Four Wind Giants. They only seek to eat the people.