Pocahontas (12 page)

"Should I answer these complaints?" he drawled. "Or is there aught to charge me withal?"

At that, President Ratliffe pulled out the paper-book loaded with articles against him and gave them to Archer to read.

"Master President," Wingfield protested, "by the instruction of our government, our proceedings ought to be verbal, not written. I desire a copy of these articles and time to answer them likewise in writing."

"That will not be granted," President Ratliffe replied in a voice as cold as stone. But some thought now began to pass through his head. Archer had not read half the complaints before our new president raised his hand.

"Stay, stay," Ratliffe said. "We know not whether he will abide our judgement or appeal to the King. How say you, sir? Will you appeal to the King or no?"

A smile now appeared on Master Wingfield's face, seeing himself thus plucked out of the fire.

At the same time a murmur began to grow among the gentlemen in the crowd.

"If others would join me," Richard Crofts said in a voice whose calm made it no less threatening, "I would not just pull him out of his seat, but out of his skin!"

"Master President," Wingfield cried, "His Majesty's hands are full of mercy and I do appeal to them."

"So shad it be," President Ratliffe replied, raising his hand even higher as he looked about the circle of angry faces. Some there would gladly have seen Master Wingfield shot or skinned, but I stood beside the President, my hand held close to the butt of my French pistol. The murmurs soon subsided.

Ratliffe nodded. He gestured to the master of the pinnace and then pointed at Wingfield's fat belly. "Look to him well. He is now the King's prisoner."

Thus it came to be that Master Wingfield and the mutinous Kendad were placed together. Yet, though living in disgrace on the pinnace, they still sought to strengthen themselves with the sailors and other confederates to regain their former credit and authority. More trouble was soon to come.

Among our people, all of the men pluck out the hair on the right side of their head, wearing it long only on the left side. Long ago, before our men learned to do this, they wore their hair long on both sides. Sometimes their long hair would tangle in their bowstrings. Then Okeus took the shape of a man and appeared to the
quiyoughsokuk.
Even though he was in the shape of a person, they recognized him as a god. They saw that there was no hair on the right side of his head and that the long hair on the left side of his head was bound into a knot with the horn of a deer thrust through it.

"
This is the proper way for a man," Okeus said to them. "This is the way it should be for all men from this time on.
"

TAQUITOCK
TIME OF HARVEST
MID-SEPTEMBER
1607

M
Y UNCLE
O
PECHANCANOUGH
has begun to wonder if any of the Tassantassuk are real men.

"Hunh!" he said. "It is not only that they wear their hair as women do. They also do the work of women."

"Badly," Amocis replied with a smile. Amocis is as clever as a fox. He is like the hungry fox who watches and listens, waiting
for that moment when the rabbit is so foolish that he comes close enough to be caught. That is why my father uses him to gather information. Yet even my father has said that he does not fully trust Amocis as he does Nauriaus. Nauriaus has been able to keep a close watch on the Tassantassuk when they have used him as a guide and has brought my father much useful information.

My uncle Opechancanough laughed at what Amocis said. Of all my uncles, Opechancanough is the one who likes most to laugh. He is also acknowledged by everyone to be the bravest of warriors. Brave as he is, he is not as patient as my father. If my uncle were Mamanatowic, he would have wiped out the Tassantassuk by now.

As soon as he finished laughing at Amocis's words, my uncle's face grew serious again. "Those Coatmen also show no courage. They go about like beggars, asking for food. They do not know how to show hospitality in return when our people visit them. Instead, they scream like Utile boys who have not yet been killed and brought back to life as men. They are all afraid of us. Hunh! Have you not seen how they step back in fear whenever one of our men teases them or bullies them to see what they will do? If they did not have their thunder weapons, they would run from us like deer before a party of hunters."

Amocis smiled again and swung his hand down toward the ground. "They are not deer," he said. "They live inside the walls of their stockade in holes dug into the ground, like woodchucks."

Opechancanough began to laugh again. "Hunh, they are as hairy as the woodchuck. Maybe that is what they really are. Woodchucks who have learned to walk upright and act like human beings."

"Your words are wise," Amocis said. His face became serious. "What you say is true of most of the Coatmen. But their
Captain Newport, the one-handed werowance, he behaved as a man and a leader."

"Unh-hunh." My uncle rubbed his chin with his hand. "That is true. He also spoke some of our words, as a man should. But now he is gone, taking with him the two great
quintansuk
with swan wings. Maybe he left because he was so disgusted with what cowards the rest of them are. Amocis,
nettoppew,
have you seen any of them who behave as if they are real men?"

Amocis held up his little finger. "
Necut,
" he said. "There is at least one. The little angry one with the red hair on his face."

My uncle rubbed his chin again. "
Kator,
" he said. "You speak truly. I think I would like to talk to that one."

From what I have heard, it does seem as if the Tassantassa that we cad Little Red-Haired Warrior is the bravest of the Coatmen. Over the last few days, he has begun to go up and down the river in the one remaining swan canoe, the smallest of the three. Like aU the Tassantassuk, he is always hungry. We now have a song about them that is very funny.

Whe Whe Tassantassuk,
always hungry, always begging
Whe whe Tassantassuk
ya ha ha ne he ho

One day, Little Red-Haired Warrior went looking for food all the way to Kecoughtan. When he reached there, Amocis told me, the people did not want to trade with him. They were disgusted with the strange behavior of the Coatmen. They were also angry because some of their men had been wounded by the thunder weapons two seasons ago when the strangers first arrived. Because of what had happened, when the big swan canoe
pulled up to shore this time and the Coatmen fired their thunder weapons, all of the people retreated from them. The old ones and the women and children went and hid in the forest. But the forty warriors of Kecoughtan had a plan. They did not run away. They went into the
yihacan
of Okeus and made themselves ready. They painted themselves black and white and red and placed Okeus on a platform so that they could carry him with them into battle. They were sure that the Tassantassuk would see the fearsome power of Okeus and run away. The Okeus of Kecoughtan is not as frightening or dangerous as the one in my father's village, or so I have been told. But I still would not like to look at him. At Kecoughtan the spirit of Okeus is held inside a shape almost as large as a man, made of skins stuffed with moss and covered with copper and necklaces of shells. Only the most fearless of men have the courage to touch him or carry him into battle.

As soon as the men of Kecoughtan left the
yihacan
of Okeus, they began to sing one of their war songs. They stomped their feet as they sang and made a sound that should have terrified the Tassantassuk as they came out of the village toward the beach. The air shook with the power of their song.

But Little Red-Haired Warrior was leading the Coatmen that day. He did not run. He stood calmly, stroking the hair on his face. His seven men stood behind him. When the men of Kecoughtan were only a spear's throw away, Little Red-Haired Warrior made his thunder weapon spit fire over the heads of the Kecoughtans, and his seven men did the same with their weapons. The sound of their thunder was so loud that it killed the war song the men of Kecoughtan had been chanting. The legs of those who carried Okeus became too weak to hold them up, and the men fell on the ground. The other warriors of Kecoughtan fled.

That Little Red-Haired Warrior showed such courage was a good thing. What he did next was even better. He and his men did not try to steal food, even though baskets of corn lay ad around the village. They did not strike the men who lay on the ground. They did not take away the image of Okeus or try to damage him as an enemy would. Instead, he and his men simply stood and waited. Finally the
quiyoughsokuk
of Kecoughtan came out of the
yihacan
of Okeus and approached them.

Little Red-Haired Warrior gestured for him to come closer. He placed his hand on his heart to show he would be a friend and made other signs indicating that he wanted to trade for food. If six men would come forth and load their boat with corn, he would give them beads, copper, and hatchets.

This pleased the people of Kecoughtan, just as it pleased me when I heard Amocis tell of Little Red-Haired Warrior's actions. It pleased them even more when they saw how kind he was to the little children who began to gather around him. He allowed them to touch him and his strange clothing. He gave them gifts.

It makes me smile when I see this in my mind, when I close my eyes and watch my Little Red-Haired Warrior behaving like a true human being with our people. It was how a true warrior should behave, stern to those who would fight with him but gentle with those who are weak, and kind to those who would be friends. That is why when our men go to fight they are careful never to injure women and children or those too old to fight. In the same way, they show honor to the werowances and their families. When werowances or any of their families are captured in battle, they are never injured or tortured but brought back to be held as honored captives.

Soon the people of Kecoughtan were giving food to the Tassantassuk. They made a great feast of venison and turkeys,
squash and
ponepope.
They brought bowls of
pausarowmena
and cups of
puccahiccora.
As the Tassantassuk left, Little Red-Haired Warrior was smiling. He stood in the front of their swan canoe and waved his hand at the people on the beach as they sang and danced in sign of their friendship.

Item: The English in that country have among themselves proclaimed and sworn the King of England as King of Virginia. And the anxiety they feel that the secrets of this country shall not be known, is so great that they have issued orders prohibiting anyone from taking letters with him beyond the frontiers, and also from sending any, except to private individuals, without their first being seen and read by the governor. For the same reason they have tried in that fort of theirs at Jamestown an English captain, a Catholic, called Captain Tindol, because they knew that he had tried to get to Spain, in order to reveal to His Majesty all about this country and many plans of the English which he knew, but which the narrator does not know.

—R
EPORT OF WHAT
F
RANCISCO
M
AGUEL, AN
I
RISHMAN, LEARNED IN THE STATE OF
V
IRGINIA
DURING THE EIGHT MONTHS HE WAS THERE.
(F
ROM AN ENCLOSURE IN A LETTER FROM
D
ON
A
LONSO DE
V
ELASCO, THE
S
PANISH
A
MBASSADOR
IN
L
ONDON, TO THE
K
ING OF
S
PAIN
)

SEPTEMBER
17
TH
, 1607–
NOVEMBER
28
TH
, 1607

T
HE NEW PRESIDENT
and Martin were little beloved, of weak judgement in dangers, and even less industrious in
peace. So it was that they committed the managing of all things to me. I knew that I must spare no pains to make homes for the company, who, notwithstanding our misery, little ceased their malice, grudging, and muttering. It seemed they would rather starve and rot with idleness than be persuaded to do anything for their own relief without constraint. By my own good example, good words, and fair promises I set some to mow, others to bind thatch, some to build houses and others to thatch them. Myself always bearing the greatest task for my own share, in short time I provided them lodgings, neglecting any for myself.

This done, I was constrained to be cape merchant and sent to the mouth of the river to Kecoughtan, an Indian town, to trade for corn and try the river for fish. Our fishing we could not effect by reason of the stormy weather. At Kecoughtan they scorned me at first as a famished man. In derision they offered me a handful of corn and a piece of bread for our swords and muskets. Seeing that by trade and courtesy there was nothing to be had, I made bold to try such conclusions as necessity enforced. So I let fly my muskets and ran my boat on shore, whereat they all fled into the woods.

God, the absolute disperser of all hearts, then altered their conceits. Now they became no less desirous of our commodities than we of their corn. With fish, bread, oysters, and deer, they kindly traded with me and my men. With sixteen bushels of corn, I returned toward our fort. By the way I encountered with two canoes of Indians from the town and country of Warraskoyack. They requested me to return to their town, where they should load my boat with corn. Thus, with near thirty bushels I returned to our fort.

On the seventeenth of September, Master Wingfield was sent for to the court to answer his slanders against Jehu Robinson and Captain Smith. When president, the gentle Wingfield falsely said that Robinson with others planned to run away with the shallop to Newfoundland, and Robinson now exhibited a complaint against him. My own charge was that he must answer him for that he had said I did conceal an intended mutiny.