“In some part of the Country, they haue yearely a sacrifice o!
children. Such a one was at QuiyauKcahanack, some io miles from
1ranges Towne, and thus performed.
Fifteen of the properest young boys, between ten and fifteen years of age they painted white. Having brought them forth, the people spent the fore noon in dancing and singing about them with Rattles. In the afternoon they put those children to the root of a tree. By them all the men stood in a guard, every one having a Bastinado in his hand, made of reeds bound together. This made a lane between them all along, through which there were appointed five young men to fetch these children: so every one of the five went through the guard to fetch a child each after other by turns, the guard fiercely beating them with their Bastinadoes, and they patiently enduring and receiving all defending the children with their naked bodies from the unmerciful blows, that pay them soundly, though the children escape.
All this while the women weep and cry out very passionately, providing mats, skins, moss, and dry wood, as things fitting their children’s funerals. After the children were thus passed the guard, the guard tore down the trees, branches and boughs, with such violence that they rent the body, and made wreaths for their heads, or bedecked their hair with the leaves.
What else was done with the children, was not seen, but they were all cast on a heap, in a valley as dead, where they made a great feast for all the company.
The Werowance being demanded the meaning of this sacrifice, answered that the children were not all dead, but that the Okee or Devil did suck the blood from their left breast, who chanced to be his by lot, till they were dead, but the rest were kept in the wilderness by the young men till nine months were expired, during which time they must not converse with any, and of these were made their Priests and Conjurers.This sacrifice they held to be so necessary, that if they should omit it, their Okee or Devil, and all their other Quiyoughcosughes, which are their other Gods, would let them have no Deer, Turkeys, Corn, nor fish, and yet besides, he would make a great slaughter amongst them.