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VI.—a Virginia princess.
Nor is [she] so handsome a savage woman as I have seen amongst them, yet with a kind of pride can take upon her a show of greatness; for we have seen her forbear to come out of her
quintan,or boat, through the water, as the other, both maids and married women, usually do, unless she were carried forth between two of her servants.
I was once early at her house—it being summer time-when she was laid without doors, under the shadow of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet of osiers, spread over with four or five fine gray mats, herself covered with a fair white dressed deerskin or two; and, when she rose, she had a maid who fetched her a frontall
1 of white coral, and pendants of great but imperfect colored and worse drilled pearls, which she put into her ears, and a chain with long links of copper, which they call
tapoantaminais,and which came twice or thrice about her neck, and they account a jolly ornament.
And sure thus attired, with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their hairs, they seem as debonaire, quaint, and well pleased as . . . a daughter of the house of
Austria2 decked with all her jewels.
Likewise, her maid fetched her a mantle, which they call
puttawus,which is like a side cloak, made of blue feathers, so artificially and thick sewed together, that it seemed like a deep purple satin, and is very smooth and sleek; and after, she brought her water for her hands, and then a branch or two of fresh green ashen leaves, as for a towel to dry them.
