Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/300

286 taken priſoners, ought to exempt them from that character. Much leſs are they to be characteriſed as a people of no vivacity, and who are excited to action or motion only by the calls of hunger and thirſt. Their dances in which they ſo much delight, and which to an European would be the moſt ſevere exerciſe, fully contradict this, not to mention the fatiguing marches, and the toil they voluntarily and cheerfully undergo in their military expeditions. It is true, that when at home, they do not employ themſelves in labor or the culture of the ſoil: but this again is the effect of cuſtoms and manners, which have aſſigned that to the province of the women. But it is ſaid, they are averſe to ſociety and a ſocial life. Can any thing be more inapplicable than this to a people who always live in towns or clans? Or can they be ſaid to have no ‘republic,’ who conduct all their affairs in national councils, who pride themſelves in their national character, who conſider an inſult or injury done to an individual by a ſtranger as done to the whole, and reſent it accordingly? In ſhort this picture is not applicaple to any nation of Indians I have ever known or heard of in North-America.

(5.) p. 128. As far as I have been able to learn, the country from the ſea coaſt to the Alleghaney, and from the moſt ſouthern waters of James River up to Patuxen River, now in the ſtate of Maryland, was occupied by three different nations of Indians, each of which ſpoke a different language, and were under ſeparate and diſtinct governments. What the original or real names of thoſe nations were, I have not been able to learn with certainty: but by us they are diſtinguiſhed by the names