ABORIGINAL USE OF PEARLS 487
described,
made usually of deerskin with the hair removed, and bordered with a
fringe. These were often "couloured with some pretty work, . . .
beasts, fowle, tortayses, or such like imagery,"x or adorned with shells, white beads, copper ornaments, pearls, or the teeth of animals.2
Strachey describes a wonderful cloak made of feather-work, belonging to
an Indian princess, the wife of a deposed chief, Pipisco; with it she
wore "pendants of great but imperfect couloured and worse drilled
pearles, which she put into her eares," besides a long necklace made of
copper links.3
With
regard to such ornaments, Mr. Willoughby says (p. 71) that "the ears of
both sexes were pierced with great holes, the women commonly having
three in each ear, in which were hung strings of bones, shell, and
copper beads, copper pendants, and other ornaments. Captain Amidas met
the wife of a chief who wore in her ears strings of pearl beads as
large as 'great pease' which hung down to her middle.4 The
husband of this woman wore five or six copper pendants in each ear. It
was a common custom for the men to wear a claw of a hawk, eagle,
turkey, or bear, or even a live snake as an.ear ornament."
"Bracelets
and neck ornaments of various kinds of beads were common. Beads of
copper seem to have been most highly valued in the early colonial
period. These were made of 'shreeds of copper, beaten thinne and
bright, and wound up hollowe,' and were sometimes strung alternately
with pearls which were occasionally stained to render them more
attractive.5 Beads of polished bone or shell were strung
into necklaces either alone or with perforated pearls or copper beads.
Some of these chains were long enough to pass several times around the
neck. Necklaces of such construction as to be easily identified were
worn by messengers as a proof of good faith. Powhatan gave Sir Thomas
Dale a pearl necklace, and requested that any messenger sent by Dale to
him should wear it as a guaranty that the message was authentic."6
"Pearls
of various shapes and sizes were comparatively common, but symmetrical
pearls of uniform size were more rare. Strachey writes of having seen
'manie chaynes and braceletts (of pearls) worne by the people, and wee
have found plentie of them in the sepulchers of their kings, though
discoloured by burning the oysters in the fier, and deformed by grosse
boring.' One of Hariot's companions obtained
