Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/191

 the southern banks of the Powhatan, the werowance began the audience by gravely seating himself on a mat and lighting his pipe. In the excursion to an Indian village, which a number of the colonists participated in soon after the landing at Jamestown, leaves were gathered by the natives from the tobacco stalks growing in the Indian gardens, and distributed among the members of the party, probably to gratify their curiosity rather than for use, as it was in May, when the plant had only reached a moderate size. In the different voyages of exploration, tobacco was always added to the generous presents of food which the Indians were constantly making, being coupled with gifts of nuts, mulberries, strawberries, and raspberries, as if it were regarded as a relish. The aborigines, in the valleys of the Powhatan and Pamunkey, continued to produce their usual amount of maize long after it had become possible to purchase their annual supplies from the English colonists, who were gradually taking possession of so much of the country. They ceased, however, to plant tobacco as soon as their white neighbors began to cultivate it on an extensive scale, contenting themselves with obtaining as much by exchange as they wanted; they were probably, in a measure, led to adopt this course by the superior quality of the leaf which the colonists grew.

In addition to the varied supplies derived from the cultivation of the soil, the Indians made use, as food, of many natural products requiring no tillage. They obtained bread not only from the grains of maize, but also from the seed of the sunflower and the mattoom, the cakes