The Indians seldom wantonly killed their captives. When a sufficient number had been sacrificed to avenge the memory of such braves as had fallen in fight, the remaining captives were either adopted as tribesmen or disposed of as slaves.
So valiant a warrior as this pale-faced cau-co-rouse was too important a personage to be used as a slave, and Wa-bun-so-na-cook, the chief, received him as an honored guest[1]
rather than as a prisoner, kept him in his own house for two days, and adopting him as his own son, promised him a large gift of land. Then, with many expressions of friendship, he returned him, well escorted by Indian guides, to the trail that led back direct to the English colony at Jamestown.
[1] "Hee kindly welcomed me with good wordes," says Smith's own narrative, "assuring me his friendship and my libertie."This rather destroys the long-familiar romance of the doughty captain's life being saved by "the king's own daughter," but it seems to be the only true version of the story, based upon his own original report.
But though the oft-described "rescue" did not take place, the valiant Englishman's attention was speedily drawn to the agile little Indian girl, Ma-ta-oka, whom her father called his "tomboy," or po-ca-hun-tas.
She was as inquisitive as any young girl, savage or civilized, and she was so full of kindly attentions to the captain, and bestowed on him so many smiles and looks of wondering curiosity, that Smith made much of her in return, gave her some trifling presents and asked her name.
Now it was one of the many singular customs of the American Indians never to tell their own names, nor even to allow them to be spoken to strangers by any of their own immediate kindred. The reason for this lay in the superstition which held that the speaking of one's real name gave to the stranger to whom it was spoken a magical and harmful influence over such person. For the Indian religion was full of what is called the supernatural.
So, when the old chief of the Pow-ha-tans (who, for this very reason, was known to the colonists by the name of his tribe, Pow-ha-tan, rather than by his real name of Wa-bun-so-na-cook)was asked his little daughter's name, he hesitated, and then gave in reply the nick-name by which he often called her, Po-ca-hun-tas, the "little tomboy"--for this agile young maiden, by reason of her relationship to the head chief, was allowed much more freedom and fun than was usually the lot of Indian girls, who were, as a rule, the patient and uncomplaining little drudges of every Indian home and village.
So, when Captain Smith left Wero-woco-moco, he left one firm friend behind him,--the pretty little Indian girl, Ma-ta-oka,--who long remembered the white man and his presents, and determined, after her own wilful fashion, to go into the white man's village and see all their wonders for herself.
In less than a year she saw the captain again, For when, in the fall of 1608, he came to her father's village to invite the old chief to Jamestown to be crowned by the English as "king" of the Pow-ha-tans, this bright little girl of twelve gathered together the other little girls of the village, and, almost upon the very spot where, many years after, Cornwallis was to surrender the armies of England to the "rebel" republic, she with her companions entertained the English captain with a gay Indian dance full of noise and frolic.
Soon after this second interview, Ma-ta-oka's wish to see the white man's village was gratified. For in that same autumn of 1608 she came with Ra-bun-ta to Jamestown. She sought out the captain who was then "president" of the colony, and "entreated the libertie" of certain of her tribesmen who had been "detained,"--in other words, treacherously made prisoners by the settlers because of some fear of an Indian plot against them.
Smith was a shrewd enough man to know when to bluster and when to be friendly. He released the Indian captives at Ma-ta-oka's wish--well knowing that the little girl had been duly "coached"by her wily old father, but feeling that even the friendship of a child may often be of value to people in a strange land.
The result of this visit to Jamestown was the frequent presence in the town of the chieftain's daughter. She would come, sometimes, with her brother, Nan-ta-qua-us, sometimes with the runner, Ra-bun-ta, and sometimes with certain of her girl followers. For even little Indian girls had their "dearest friends," quite as much as have our own clannish young school-girls of to-day.
I am afraid, however, that this twelve-year-old, Ma-ta-oka, fully deserved, even when she should have been on her good behavior among the white people, the nickname of "little tomboy"(po-ca-hun-tas) that her father had given her,--for we have the assurance of sedate Master William Strachey, secretary of the colony, that "the before remembered Pocahontas, Powhatan's daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of the age then of eleven or twelve years, did get the boyes forth with her into the market-place, and make them wheele, falling on their hand turning their heeles upward, whome she would followe and wheele so herself, all the fort over." From which it would appear that she could easily "stunt" the English boys at "making cart-wheels."But there came a time very soon when she came into Jamestown for other purpose than turning somersaults.
