ns were not numerous; their remedies few and
simple, their physic consisting mainly of the bark and roots of trees.
Sweating was a favorite remedy, and every town was provided with a
sweat-house. The patient, issuing from the heated atmosphere, plunged
himself in cold water, after the manner of the Russian bath.

The Indians celebrated certain festivals by pastimes, games, and songs.
The year they divided into five seasons, Cattapeak, the budding time of
spring; Messinough, roasting ear time; Cohattayough, summer; Taquitock,
the fall of the leaf; and Popanow, winter, sometimes called Cohonk,
after the cry of the migratory wild-geese. Engaged from their childhood
in fishing and hunting, they became expert and familiar with the haunts
of game and fish. The luggage of hunting parties was carried by the
women. Deer were taken by surrounding them, and kindling fires enclosing
them in a circle, till they were killed; sometimes they were driven into
the water, and there captured. The Indian, hunting alone, would stalk
behind the skin of a deer. Game being abundant in the mountain country,
hunting parties repaired to the heads of the rivers at the proper
season, and this probably engendered the continual hostilities that
existed between the Powhatans of the tide-water region and the Monacans,
on the upper waters of the James, and the Mannahoacks, at the head of
the Rappahannock. The savages were in the habit of exercising themselves
in sham-fights. Upon the first discharge of arrows they burst forth in
horrid shrieks and the war-whoop, so that as many infernal hell-hounds
could not have been more terrific. "All their actions, cries, and
gestures, in charging and retreating," says Captain Smith, "were so
strained to the height of their quality and nature, that the strangeness
thereof made it seem very delightful." For their music they used a thick
cane, on which they piped as on a recorder. They had also a rude sort of
drum, and rattles of gourds or pumpkins. The chastity of their women was
not held in much value, but wives were careful not to be suspected
without the consent of their husbands.

The Indians were hospitable, in their manners exhibiting that
imperturbable equanimity and uniform self-possession and repose which
distinguish the refined society of a high civilization. Extremes meet.
Yet the Indians were in everything wayward and inconstant, unless where
restrained by fear; cunning, quick of apprehension, and ingeniou