t easily
provoked, but, when they are thoroughly incensed, they are implacable;
very quick of apprehension and gay of temper. Their public conferences
show them to be men of genius, and they have a natural eloquence, they
never having had the use of letters. They love eating, and the English
have taught many of them to drink strong liquors, which, when they do,
they are miserable sights. They have no manufactures but what each
family makes for its own use; they seem to despise working for hire,
and spend their time chiefly in hunting and war; but plant corn enough
for the support of their families and the strangers that come to visit
them. Their food, instead of bread, is flour of Indian corn boiled,
and seasoned like hasty-pudding, and this called hommony. They also
boil venison, and make broth; they also roast, or rather broil their
meat. The flesh they feed on is buffalo, deer, wild turkeys and other
game; so that hunting is necessary to provide flesh; and planting for
corn. The land[1] belongs to the women, and the corn that grows upon
it; but meat must be got by the men, because it is they only that
hunt: this makes marriage necessary, that the women may furnish corn,
and the men meat. They have also fruit-trees in their gardens, namely,
peaches, nectarines, and locust, melons, and water-melons, potatoes,
pumpkins, onions, &c. in plenty; and many kinds of wild fruits, and
nuts, as persimons, grapes, chinquepins, and hickory nuts, of which
they make oil. The bees make their combs in the hollow trees, and the
Indians find plenty of honey there, which they use instead of sugar.
They make, what supplies the place of salt, of wood ashes; use for
seasoning, long-pepper, which grows in their gardens; and bay-leaves
supply their want of spice. Their exercises are a kind of
ball-playing, hunting, and running; and they are very fond of dancing.
Their music is a kind of drum, as also hollow cocoa-nut shells. They
have a square in the middle of their towns, in which the warriors sit,
converse, and smoke together; but in rainy weather they meet in the
King's house. They are a very healthy people, and have hardly any
diseases, except those occasioned by the drinking of rum, and the
small pox. Those who do not drink rum are exceedingly long-lived. Old
BRIM emperor of the Creeks, who died but a few years ago, lived to one
hundred and thirty years; and he was neither blind nor bed-rid, till
some months before his death. They have so