Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
inhabitants of the land; that after the Christians have multiplied and the natives
have disappeared and melted away, a memorial of them may be preserved.
Their appearance and bodily form, as well of the men as of the women, are
well proportioned, and equal in height to the Netherlanders, varying little from the
common size. Their limbs are properly formed, and they are sprightly and active.
They can run very fast for a long time, and they can carry heavy packs. To all bodily
exertions they are very competent, as far as their dispositions extend; but to heavy
slavish labour the men have a particular aversion, and they manage their aairs
accordingly, so that they need not labour much. Misshapen or ill-formed persons
are very rare amongst them. During the whole time of my residence in the country,
I have not seen more than one who was born deformed. Cripples, hunch-backed, or
other bodily inrmities, are so rare, that we may say that there are none amongst
them; and when we see or hear of one who is crippled or lame, we on inquiry nd
the same to have originated by accident or in war. They are all properly formed
and well proportioned persons. None are gross or uncommonly heavy. Although
nature has not given them abundant wisdom, still they exercise their talents with
discretion. No lunatics or fools are found amongst them, nor any mad or raving
persons of either sex. The men and women commonly have broad shoulders and
slender waists. Their hair, before old age, is jet black, sleek and uncurled, and nearly
as coarse as a horse’s tail. Hair of any other colour they dislike and despise. On the
skin, the breast, under the arms, and on other parts of the body, they have little or
no hair, and if any appear on their chins they pluck it out by the roots, and it seldom
sprouts again. Their old men sometimes have a little stubble on their chins. The
men and women all have ne brown eyes, and snow white teeth. Purblind, crosseyed
persons are rare objects, and I have never heard of a native who was born
blind, and they seldom lose their sight by accident. One I have seen who had lost his
eye-sight by the small pox; and when they become old, their sight does not fail so
early in life as ours. The colour of their skin is not so white as ours; still we see some
of them who have a ne skin, and they are mostly born with good complexions;
otherwise they have a yellowish colour like the Tartars, or heathen who are seen in
Holland, or like the Outlanders who keep in the elds and go uncovered as they do.
Their yellowness is no fault of nature, but it is caused by the heat of the scorching
sun, which is hotter and more powerful in that country than in Holland, which from
generation to generation has been shining on that people, and exhibits its eects
stronger. Although this yellowness of the skin appears more or less on all this race,
still we nd very comely men and women amongst them. It is true that they appear
singular and strange to our nation, because their complexion, speech and dress
are so dierent, but this, on acquaintance, is disregarded. Their women are well
favoured and fascinating. Several of our Netherlanders were connected with them
before our women came over, and remain rm in their attachments. Their faces and
countenances are as various as they are in Holland, seldom very handsome, and
rarely very ugly, and if they were instructed as our women are, there then would be
little or no dierence in their qualications.
Page | 90