[With John Fontaine, on April 17, 1716, at Christanna, continued.]
"Between the town and the river upon the river side there are several little huts built with wattles in form of an oven with a small door in one end of it. These wattles are plaistered without side with clay very close, and they are big enough to hold a man. They call those houses sweating houses, for when they have any sickness they get 10 or 12 pebble-stones which they make very red in a fire and when they are red hot they carry them in those little huts and the sick man or woman goes in naked, only a blanket with him and they shut the door upon them and there they sit and sweat until they are no more able to support it and then they go out naked and immediately jump into the water over head and ears. This is the remedy they have for all distempers.
[April 18, 1716.] "The sixth day. Christiana . The Governor sent for all the young boys, and they brought with them their bows, and he got an axe which he stuck up and made them all shoot by turns at the eye of the axe, which was about 20 yards distance. The Governor had looking glasses and knives which were the prizes the boys shot for. They were very dexterous at this exercise and very often shot through the eye of the axe. [Does anyone know what the eye of an axe is?] This diversion continued about an hour.
[Note from GWD, Webmaster: The boys were evidently shooting at the head of an axe that did not have a handle in it. The "eye" is the hole in the metal axe head into which the wooden handle is fitted. In other words, the axe was stuck into something wooden with the empty hole facing the boys. Some were able to put the arrow through the hole, which probably measured about 1x2 inches. Not an easy target.]
"The Governor asked the boys to dance a war dance so they prepared for it and made a great ring. The musician being come he set himself in the middle of the ring, and all the instrument he had was piece of a board and two small sticks. The board he set upon his lap and began to sing a doleful tune, and by striking on the board with his sticks he accompanied his voice and made several antic motions, and sometimes shrieked hideously, which was answered by the boys. According as the man sung so the boys danced all round endeavouring who could outdo the one the other in antic motions, and hideous cries. Their motions answered in some way to the time of the music. All that I could remark by their actions was that they were representing how they attacked their enemies, and would relate the one to the other how many of the other Indians they had killed, and how they did it, making all the motions in this dance as if they were actually in the action. By this lively representation of their warring one may see the base way they have of surprising and murdering all their prisoners, and what terrible cries they have when they are conquerors. After the dance was over the governor treated all the boys, but they are so little used to have a belly full that they rather devoured their victuals than any thing else. So this day ended."
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.