, lay Captain William
Sandford's plantation (granted 1668), afterward called New Barbadoes.
North of his grant lay that of Captain John Berry (1669), still higher
that of Jacques Cortelyou and his partners.]

We acknowledge, he said, a supreme first power, some cause of all
things, which is known by all the Indians of North America,
hereabouts, whether Mahatans, Sinnekes, Maquaas, Minquaas, southern or
northern Indians, not only by the name of _Sackamacher_ or _Sachamor_
(which the Dutch for the sake of convenience will pervert into
_Sackemacher_), that is to say, lord, captain, or chief, which all
persons bear who have any power or authority among them, especially
any government or rule over other persons and affairs, and that name,
it appeared to him, was used by others to express God, more than by
themselves; but the true name by which they call this Supreme Being,
the first and great beginning of all things, was Kickeron,[303] who is
the origin of all, who has not only once produced or made all things,
but produces every day. All that we see daily that is good, is from
him; and every thing he makes and does is good. He governs all things,
and nothing is done without his aid and direction. "And," he
continued, "I, who am a captain and _Sakemaker_ among the Indians, and
also a medicine-man (as was all true), and have performed many good
cures among them, experience every day that all medicines do not cure,
if it do not please him to cause them to work; that he will cure one
and not another thereby; that sickness is bad, but he sends it upon
whom he pleases, because those upon whom he visits it are bad; but we
did not have so much sickness and death before the Christians came
into the country, who have taught the people debauchery and excess;
they are therefore much more miserable than they were before. The
devil, who is wicked, instigates and urges them on, to all kinds of
evil, drunkenness and excess, to fighting and war, and to strife and
violence amongst themselves, by which many men are wounded and killed.
He thus does all kind of evil to them." I told him I had conversed
with Jasper or Tantaque, another old Indian,[304] on the subject, from
whence all things had come, and he had told me they came from a
tortoise; that this tortoise had brought forth the world, or that all
things had come from it; that from the middle of the tortoise there
had sprung upon a tree, upon whose branches men had grown. That was
true,