Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent.

  • John Beaumont
Date:
1724
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gleanings of antiquities / By John Beaumont, Gent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    either really are, or pretend to be dumb, and do not fpeak for feveral days ; Mr. Lawfon thinks, twenty, or thirty : and look fo ghaftly, and are fo changed, that it’s in a manner impoflible to know them again, tho5 you were never fo well acquainted with them before. He would fain have gone into the Houfe of Confinement, to have feeq them in their time of Purgation ; but the King would not fuffer it, telling him, they would do him, or any other white Man a mifchief that ventured in among them, which made him delift. They deal after the fame manner with the Girls, as with the Boys ; and thefe young Peo¬ ple are very much afraid of it, many of them run¬ ning away at the time to avoid it. The Savages fay, if it were not for this, they could never keep their Youth in Subje&ion ; befide that, it hardens them to the Fatigues, and all manner of Hardftiip$,f which their way of living expofes them to; that it carries off all infirm Bodies that would have been only a Burthen and Difgrace to their Nation, and faves the Vi&uals and Cloathing for better People, that would have been expended on fuch ufelefs Crea¬ tures. After Mr. Lawfon has given us this Account, he obferves that very few give us Accounts of thefe Sa¬ vages as they ought ; which happens, becaufe thofe, who write Hiftories of this new World, are fuch as Intereft, Preferment and Merchandize draw thither, and know no more of that People, than they do of the Laplanders, which is only by Hearfay. Mr Beverly, in his Hiftory of Virginia, gives us like account of this Hufquenawing Pra&ice in ufe there, as follows. The Solemnity of Hufquenawing is commonly prac¬ ticed tliere every fourteen or fixteen Years, or oftener, as their Young Men happen to grow up. It is an Inftitution, or Difcipline, that all young Men mu ft pafs, before they can be admitted the number of
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