...
Oh, may I see the wonderful power of God that my spirit did not utterly
sink under my affliction; still the Lord upheld me with his gracious and
merciful spirit." The little girl soon died. For three months the weary
and heartbroken mother was led about the country by these loathsome
savages, of whose habits and manners she gives a vivid description. At
first their omnivorousness astonished her. "Skunks and rattlesnakes, yea
the very bark of trees" they esteemed as delicacies. "They would pick up
old bones and cut them in pieces at the joints, ... then boil them and
drink up the liquor, and then beat the great ends of them in a mortar
and so eat them." After some weeks of starvation Mrs. Rowlandson herself
was fain to partake of such viands. One day, having made a cap for one
of Philip's boys, she was invited to dine with the great sachem. "I
went," she says, "and he gave me a pancake about as big as two fingers.
It was made of parched wheat, beaten, and fried in bear's grease; but I
thought I never tasted pleasanter meat in my life." Early in May she was
redeemed for 20 pounds, and went to find her husband in Boston, where
the Old South Church society hired a house for them. [Sidenote: Mrs.
Rowlandson's narrative]
Such was the experience of a captive whose treatment was, according to
Indian notions, hospitable.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285