Twentieth Remove Part 4

Edited by Rhys Wong

The chief and commonest food was ground nuts. They eat also nuts and acorns, artichokes, lilly roots, ground beans, and several other weeds and roots, that I know not.

They would pick up old bones, and cut them to pieces at the joints, and if they were full of worms and maggots, they would scald them over the fire to make the vermine come out, and then boil them, and drink up the liquor, and then beat the great ends of them in a mortar, and so eat them. They would eat horse’s guts, and ears, and all sorts of wild birds which they could catch; also bear, venison, beaver, tortoise, frogs, squirrels, dogs, skunks, rattlesnakes; yea, the very bark of trees; besides all sorts of creatures, and provision which they plundered from the English. I can but stand in admiration to see the wonderful power of God in providing for such a vast number of our enemies in the wilderness, where there was nothing to be seen, but from hand to mouth. Many times in a morning, the generality of them would eat up all they had, and yet have some further supply against they wanted. It is said, “Oh, that my People had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways, I should soon have subdued their Enemies, and turned my hand against their Adversaries” (Psalm 81.13-14).¹ But now our perverse and evil carriages² in the sight of the Lord, have so offended Him, that instead of turning His hand against them, the Lord feeds and nourishes them up to be a scourge³ to the whole land.

5. Another thing that I would observe is the strange providence of God, in turning things about when the Indians was at the highest, and the English at the lowest. I was with the enemy eleven weeks and five days, and not one week passed without the fury of the enemy, and some desolation by fire and sword upon one place or other. They mourned (with their black faces) for their own losses, yet triumphed and rejoiced in their inhumane, and many times devilish cruelty to the English. They would boast much of their victories; saying that in two hours time they had destroyed such a captain and his company at such a place; and boast how many towns they had destroyed, and then scoff, and say they had done them a good turn to send them to Heaven so soon. Again, they would say this summer that they would knock all the rogues⁴ in the head, or drive them into the sea, or make them fly the country; thinking surely, Agag-like, “The bitterness of Death is past.” Now the heathen begins to think all is their own, and the poor Christians’ hopes to fail (as to man) and now their eyes are more to God, and their hearts sigh heaven-ward; and to say in good earnest, “Help Lord, or we perish.” When the Lord had brought His people to this, that they saw no help in anything but Himself; then He takes the quarrel into His own hand; and though they had made a pit, in their own imaginations, as deep as hell for the Christians that summer, yet the Lord hurled themselves into it. And the Lord had not so many ways before to preserve them, but now He hath as many to destroy them.

But to return again to my going home, where we may see a remarkable change of providence. At first they were all against it, except my husband would come for me, but afterwards they assented to it, and seemed much to rejoice in it; some asked me to send them some bread, others some tobacco, others shaking me by the hand, offering me a hood and scarfe to ride in; not one moving hand or tongue against it. Thus hath the Lord answered my poor desire, and the many earnest requests of others put up unto God for me. In my travels an Indian came to me and told me, if I were willing, he and his squaw⁵ would run away, and go home along with me. I told him no: I was not willing to run away, but desired to wait God’s time, that I might go home quietly, and without fear. And now God hath granted me my desire. O the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experience that I have had. I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and savage bears⁶, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by night and day, alone and in company, sleeping all sorts together, and yet not one of them ever offered me the least abuse of unchastity to me, in word or action.⁷ Though some are ready to say I speak it for my own credit; but I speak it in the presence of God, and to His Glory. God’s power is as great now, and as sufficient to save, as when He preserved Daniel in the lion’s den;⁸ or the three children in the fiery furnace.⁹ I may well say as his Psalm 107.12 “Oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever.”¹⁰ Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy, especially that I should come away in the midst of so many hundreds of enemies quietly and peaceably, and not a dog moving his tongue.

Works Cited

Rowlandson, Mary. Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Project Gutenberg, 1635?-1711.

Stratton, Billy J. Buried in Shades of Night: Contested Voices, Indian Captivity, and the Legacy of King Philip’s War. University of Arizona Press, 2013.

Zheng, Liping. “Shaping a Paragon of the Puritan Female Image, Mary Rowlandson’s Captivity Narrative.” International Journal of English and Literature. 8. 2018. 95-104.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Project Gutenberg for providing the digitized version of this text free of charge. Without their generosity, this project would not be possible.

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1. Rowlandson believed that God was favouring her enemy, which is counterintuitive to her belief that the indigenous could not be true Christians. Link to an interpretation of Psalm 81. ↩

2. A person’s bearing or deportment. ↩

3. A person or thing that causes great trouble or suffering. ↩

4. could be interpreted as either disruptive beings or dishonest and unprincipled beings. Rogue could also be interpreted as the colour red in French, perhaps signifying the common association with the colour red and the English military uniform adopted around 1645. ↩

5. A term for a North American Indian woman or wife. ↩

6. An Ebook portal for Billy J. Stratton’s “Buried in Shades of Night: Contested Voices, Indian Captivity, and the Legacy of King Philip’s War.” The first chapter discusses Rowlandson’s use of “savage” imagery in a captivity narrative context. ↩

7. Rowlandson’s chastity has been a focal point in the examination of this narrative. ↩

8. A brief examination of Daniel’s rescue from the lion’s den by God’s will. Daniel refuses to pray for Darius, resulting in him being thrown into a lion’s den. ↩

9. A brief examination of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s rescue from a furnace by what appeared to be “a son of God.” The three children refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar II and therefore are forced into a furnace. ↩

10. Psalm 107.12 does not correspond with the quotation above. For reference, the quote above is Psalm 107.1, but will be left unchanged from the Project Gutenberg edition ↩