A friend of mine,
Scott Higginbotham, sent me a link to this book for English settlers and their interaction with Indians in the land of Virginia back in 1585. It was a report on what settlers would encounter as they came. This report confirms how God interacts with indigenous tribes (
Having a Conscience for God). As you read you will need to substitute a V in place of the U in many places. Have fun reading this
excerpt from page 26 of
A briefe and true report
of the new found land of Virginia
of the commodities and of the nature and manners of the naturall inhabitants
But how manie yeeres or ages haue passed since, they say they can make no relation, hauing no letters nor other such meanes as we to keepe recordes of the particularities of times past, but onelie tradition from father to sonne.
They thinke that all the gods are of humane shape, & therfore they represent them by images in the formes of men, which they call Kewasowok one alone is called Kewás; Them they place in houses appropriate or temples which they call Mathicómuck; Where they woorship, praie, sing, and make manie times offerings vnto them. In some Machicómuck we haue seene but on Kewas, in some two, and in other some three; The common sort thinke them to be also gods.
They beleeue also the immortalitie of the soule, that after this life as soone as the soule is departed from the bodie according to the workes it hath done, it is eyther carried to heauẽ the habitacle of gods, there to enioy perpetuall blisse and happinesse, or els to a great pitte or hole, which they thinke to bee in the furthest partes of their part of the worlde towarde the sunne set, there to burne continually: the place they call Popogusso.
For the confirmation of this opinion, they tolde mee two stories of two men that had been lately dead and reuiued againe, the one happened but few yeres before our comming in the countrey of a wicked man which hauing beene dead and buried, the next day the earth of the graue beeing seene to moue, was takẽ vp againe; Who made declaration where his soule had beene, that is to saie very neere entring into Popogusso, had not one of the gods saued him & gaue him leaue to returne againe, and teach his friends what they should doe to auoid that terrible place of tormenr.
The other happened in the same yeere wee were there, but in a towne that was threescore miles from vs, and it was tolde mee for straunge newes that one beeing dead, buried and taken vp againe as the first, shewed that although his bodie had lien dead in the graue, yet his soule was aliue, ãnd had trauailed farre in a long broade waie, on both sides whereof grewe most delicate and pleasaũt trees, bearing more rare and excellent fruites then euer hee had seene before or was able to expresse, and at length came to most braue and faire houses, neere which hee met his father, that had beene dead before, who gaue him great charge to goe backe againe and shew his friendes what good they were to doe to enioy the pleasures of that place, which when he had done he should after come againe.
What subtilty soeuer be in the Wiroances and Priestes, this opinion worketh so much in manie of the common and simple sort of people that it maketh them haue great respect to their Gouernours, and also great care what they do, to auoid torment after death, and to enioy blisse; althought notwithstanding there is punishment ordained for malefactours, as stealers, whoremoongers, and other sortes of wicked doers; some punished with death, some with forfeitures, some with beating, according to the greatnes of the factes.
And this is the summe of their religion, which I learned by hauing special familiarity
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