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

BECOMING AMERICA
PRE- AND EARLY COLONIAL LITERATURE
o, or making any noise, or lighting any re, even when necessary for food, during
this time, in order not to be noticed if, by chance, their enemies should pass. They
do not make any re, except for smoking; and they eat Indian meal cooked, which
they soak in water, like porridge. They preserve this meal for times of need, and
when they are near their enemies, or when they are retreating after an attack, they
do not care to hunt, but retreat at once.
In all their encampments they have their Pilotois, or Ostemoy, a kind of persons
who act as soothsayers, in whom these people believe. The soothsayer builds a
cabin surrounded by sticks of wood, and covers it with his robe. When it is done he
ensconces himself inside in such a way that he cannot be seen at all; then he takes
hold of one of the posts of his cabin and shakes it, muttering some words between
his teeth, by which he says he invokes the devil, who appears to him in the form of
a stone and tells him whether they will nd their enemies and kill many of them.
This Pilotois lies at on the ground, motionless, only making believe to speak to
the devil; then suddenly he rises to his feet, talking and writhing in such a way
that, although he is naked, he is all in a perspiration. All the people are about the
cabin, seated on their buttocks like monkeys. They told me often that the shaking
of the cabin that I saw was caused by the devil and not by the man who was inside,
although I observed the contrary; for it was (as I have already said) the Pilotois who
seized one of the props of the cabin and made it move so. They also told me that
I should see re come out of the top, which I did not see at all. These rogues also
disguise their voices and make them sound big and clear and speak in a language
that is unfamiliar to the other savages; and when they make it sound broken the
savages believe that it is the devil who speaks, and that he is saying what is to
happen in their war, and what they must do. Nevertheless, all these rascals who
play soothsayer do not speak two true words out of a hundred and impose upon
these poor folk, like plenty of others in the world, in order to get their living from
the people. I often admonished them that all that they did was sheer folly, and that
they ought not to put faith in it.
Now, after they have learned from their soothsayers what is to happen to them,
they take as many sticks, a foot long, as they themselves number, and represent
their chiefs by others a little longer. Then they go into the woods and clear a place
ve or six feet square, where the chief, as eld sergeant, arranges all the sticks
in the order that seems good to him; then he calls all his companions, who all
come armed, and shows them the rank and order that they are to keep when they
ght with their enemies. All the savages watch this attentively, noticing the gure
which their chief has made with these sticks, and afterward they retire and begin
to arrange themselves as they have seen these sticks, and then mingle with one
another, and return directly to their order; continuing this two or three times, and
doing it at all their encampments, without needing a sergeant to make them keep
in their ranks, which they know well how to keep, without getting into confusion.
This is the rule that they abide by in their warfare.
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