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

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
without resentment. Delicious food or drink they disregard; they fear no accidents,
and can endure heat, cold, hunger, and thirst, in a wonderful manner, and they can
all swim like ducks from their childhood. When abroad, they spend their time in
hunting, shing or war; at home they smoke tobacco, and play a game with pieces
of reeds, resembling our card playing. The old men knit nets, and make wooden
bowls and ladles. Labour among the young men is uncommon, and nearly all the
necessary labour is done by the females.
Of their Religion, and whether they can be brought over to the
Christian Faith.
The natives are all heathen and without any religious devotions. Idols are neither
known nor worshipped among them. When they take an oath they swear by the sun,
which, they say, sees all things. They think much of the moon, and believe it has great
inuence over vegetation. Although they know all the planets from the other stars,
by appropriate names, still they pay no idolatrous worship to the same, yet by the
planets and other signs they are somewhat weatherwise. The oering up of prayers,
or the making of any distinction between days, or any matter of the kind, is unknown
among them. They neither know or say any thing of God; but they possess great fear
of the devil, who they believe causes diseases, and does them much injury. When
they go on a hunting or shing excursion they usually cast a part of what is rst taken
into the re, without using any ceremony on the occasion, then saying “stay thou
devil, eat thou that.” They love to hear usspeak of God and of our religion; and are
very attentive and still during divine service and prayers, and apparently are inclined
to devotion; but in truth they know nothing about it, and live without any religion,
or without any inward or outward godly fear, nor do they know of any superstition
or idolatry; they only follow the instilled laws of nature, therefore some suppose they
can easily be brought to the knowledge and fear of God. Among some nations the
word Sunday is known by the name of Kintowen. The oldest among them say that
in former times the knowledge and fear of God had been known among them, and
they remark, that since they can neither read nor write, in process of time the Sunday
will be forgotten, all knowledge of the same lost. Their old men, when we reason
earnestly with them on the matter, seem to feel pensive or sorrowful, but manifest
no other emotions or agitations—when we reprove them for bad conduct and reason
with them on its impropriety, and say that there is a God in heaven above whom
they oend, their common answer is—‘We do not know that God, we have never
seen him, we know not who he is—if you know him and fear him, as you say you do,
how does it then happen that so many thieves, drunkards, and evil-doers are found
among you. Certainly that God will punish you severely, because he has warned you
to beware of those deeds, which he has never done to us. We know nothing about
it, and therefore we do not deserve such punishment.’ Very seldom do they adopt
our religion, nor have there been any political measures taken for their conversion.
When their children are young some of them are frequently taken into our families
for assistants, who are, according to opportunity, instructed in our religion, but as
Page | 92