nary veneration; of this sort was the crystal cube, mentioned
book II, chap. 3, Sec. 9. The Indians call this by the name of pawcorance,
from whence proceeds the great reverence they have for a small bird that
uses the woods, and in their note continually sound that name. This bird
flies alone, and is only heard in the twilight. They say, this is the
soul of one of their princes; and on that score, they would not hurt it
for the world. But there was once a profane Indian in the upper parts of
James river, who, after abundance of fears and scruples, was at last
bribed to kill one of them with his gun; but the Indians say he paid
dear for his presumption; for in a few days after he was taken away,
and never more heard of. I have young birds of this kind.

When they travel by any of these altars, they take great care to
instruct their children and young people in the particular occasion and
time of their erection, and recommend the respect which they ought to
have for them; so that their careful observance of these traditions
proves almost as good a memorial of such antiquities as written records,
especially for so long as the same people continue to inhabit in or near
the same place.

I can't understand that their women ever pretended to intermeddle with
any offices that relate to the priesthood or conjuration.

Sec. 40. The Indians are religious in preserving the corpses of their kings
and rulers after death, which they order in the following manner: First,
they neatly flay off the skin as entire as they can, slitting it only in
the back; then they pick all the flesh off from the bones as clean as
possible, leaving the sinews fastened to the bones, that they may
preserve the joints together; then they dry the bones in the sun, and
put them into the skin again, which, in the meantime, has been kept from
drying or shrinking; when the bones are placed right in the skin, they
nicely fill up the vacuities with a very fine white sand. After this
they sew up the skin again, and the body looks as if the flesh had not
been removed. They take care to keep the skin from shrinking, by the
help of a little oil or grease, which saves it also from corruption. The
skin being thus prepared, they lay it in an apartment for that purpose,
upon a large shelf raised above the floor. This shelf is spread with
mats, for the corpse to rest easy on, and skreened with the same, to
keep it from the dust. The flesh they lay upon hurdles in the sun