will add but a brief account of how we are come to the present circumstance.
I witnessed none of what follows, but rather had to prise every fact from father’s talk with others when he thought he was not overheard. The short of it: father did not get his sonquem convert, nor did he break the power of the pawaaw Tequamuck.
When Iacoomis traveled out to preach the gospel to Nahnoso, as had been arranged, he was met by Tequamuck in full sorcerer’s regalia. A kind of duel took place between them, Tequamuck pitting his spells and demonic familiars against Iacoomis’s sacred prayers. Iacoomis stood firm, proclaiming that his God was greater than all of Tequamuck’s familiar spirits. Neither man yielded. In the end, Nahnoso stood with his kinsman, and declined to hear Iacoomis that day, or any other. Whether Tequamuck worked upon Nahnoso’s reason or simply bewitched him, as father believed, I cannot say. Father, much distressed by Iacoomis’s account, rode out himself to see Nahnoso. He brought the sonquem a stern message, warning that God would not be slighted; that, having once resolved to accept the truth of the gospel, to turn back to the devil had become a far graver sin. But Nahnoso, returned to full vigor, would have none of it and told father to trouble his mind no further. He argued fiercely, in words given him by Tequamuck: “You come here to disturb my rest with your tales of hell and damnation, but your tales are hollow threats, meant to scare us out of our customs and make us stand in awe of you. I will not hear your words.” He ordered father and Iacoomis banished from the Nobnocket lands.
Not even a month later, Nahnoso sickened again, this time with the greatest of all their scourges, the small pox. A sorer disease cannot befall them and their fear of it is very great. They that have this disease have it to a terrible extent—much worse even than we. For them, there is not the scattering of pox such as we are accustomed to suffer, but a vast clustering of pustules, breaking their skin and mattering all together.
When father first heard this report he was much grieved and made to go there, but Tequamuck persisted in refusing him to pass. We had little news of how the people fared, for the Wampanoag of Manitouwatootan were filled with dread and would not go there, not even those with family ties, no matter how father appealed to them to show Christian mercy. A sennight passed before one brave soul ventured there, and returned with a fearful report. Nahnoso had died; further, of a band numbering some hundreds, less than three score souls remained alive, and most of those were sore afflicted.
This news was too much for father. “If so many are dead there will be few to tend those that yet live,” he said. He and grandfather enlisted some other good men from Great Harbor—they refused me and Makepeace, saying that elders seemed better able to withstand this disease than the young—and set out with supplies. This, even though mother neared her time. But she urged father to go, saying that she had no fears for the outcome of her confinement, but great fears for his mission to the Indians, should he forsake them in such an hour of need. The party was away several days and we feared for them. But then one among them—James Tilman—returned to gather more supplies and to bring word that father was engaged in a great struggle to save as many who yet lived as God’s providence would allow.
Master Tilman was all grave looks as he asked mother to fetch what could be spared from our stores of food. When I went out with her to the buttery, we both of us overheard as he described the lamentable condition of the people to Makepeace. I could not meet mother’s eyes as the words drifted through the partition, but our hands, reached out to each other and clutched tight.
“One poor man, I thought to help him as he lay in his dreadful discomfort, so I attempted to lift him…” Tilman’s voice quavered
I witnessed none of what follows, but rather had to prise every fact from father’s talk with others when he thought he was not overheard. The short of it: father did not get his sonquem convert, nor did he break the power of the pawaaw Tequamuck.
When Iacoomis traveled out to preach the gospel to Nahnoso, as had been arranged, he was met by Tequamuck in full sorcerer’s regalia. A kind of duel took place between them, Tequamuck pitting his spells and demonic familiars against Iacoomis’s sacred prayers. Iacoomis stood firm, proclaiming that his God was greater than all of Tequamuck’s familiar spirits. Neither man yielded. In the end, Nahnoso stood with his kinsman, and declined to hear Iacoomis that day, or any other. Whether Tequamuck worked upon Nahnoso’s reason or simply bewitched him, as father believed, I cannot say. Father, much distressed by Iacoomis’s account, rode out himself to see Nahnoso. He brought the sonquem a stern message, warning that God would not be slighted; that, having once resolved to accept the truth of the gospel, to turn back to the devil had become a far graver sin. But Nahnoso, returned to full vigor, would have none of it and told father to trouble his mind no further. He argued fiercely, in words given him by Tequamuck: “You come here to disturb my rest with your tales of hell and damnation, but your tales are hollow threats, meant to scare us out of our customs and make us stand in awe of you. I will not hear your words.” He ordered father and Iacoomis banished from the Nobnocket lands.
Not even a month later, Nahnoso sickened again, this time with the greatest of all their scourges, the small pox. A sorer disease cannot befall them and their fear of it is very great. They that have this disease have it to a terrible extent—much worse even than we. For them, there is not the scattering of pox such as we are accustomed to suffer, but a vast clustering of pustules, breaking their skin and mattering all together.
When father first heard this report he was much grieved and made to go there, but Tequamuck persisted in refusing him to pass. We had little news of how the people fared, for the Wampanoag of Manitouwatootan were filled with dread and would not go there, not even those with family ties, no matter how father appealed to them to show Christian mercy. A sennight passed before one brave soul ventured there, and returned with a fearful report. Nahnoso had died; further, of a band numbering some hundreds, less than three score souls remained alive, and most of those were sore afflicted.
This news was too much for father. “If so many are dead there will be few to tend those that yet live,” he said. He and grandfather enlisted some other good men from Great Harbor—they refused me and Makepeace, saying that elders seemed better able to withstand this disease than the young—and set out with supplies. This, even though mother neared her time. But she urged father to go, saying that she had no fears for the outcome of her confinement, but great fears for his mission to the Indians, should he forsake them in such an hour of need. The party was away several days and we feared for them. But then one among them—James Tilman—returned to gather more supplies and to bring word that father was engaged in a great struggle to save as many who yet lived as God’s providence would allow.
Master Tilman was all grave looks as he asked mother to fetch what could be spared from our stores of food. When I went out with her to the buttery, we both of us overheard as he described the lamentable condition of the people to Makepeace. I could not meet mother’s eyes as the words drifted through the partition, but our hands, reached out to each other and clutched tight.
“One poor man, I thought to help him as he lay in his dreadful discomfort, so I attempted to lift him…” Tilman’s voice quavered
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