Document: A Short Account of the Mohawk Indians, their Country, Language, Stature, Dress, Religion and Government, thus described and recently, August 26, 1644, sent out of New Netherland, by Johannes Megapolensis the younger, Preacher there. Image 008

The country here is in general like that in Germany. The land is good, and fruitful in everything which supplies human needs, except clothes, linen, woolen, stockings, shoes, etc., which are all dear here. The country is very mountainous, partly soil, partly rocks, and with elevations so exceeding high that they appear to almost touch the clouds. Thereon grow the finest fir trees the eye ever saw. There are also in this country oaks, alders, beeches, elms, willows, etc. In the forests, and here and there along the water side, and on the islands, there grows an abundance of chestnuts, plums, hazel nuts, large walnuts of several sorts, and of as good a taste as in the Netherlands, but they have a somewhat harder shell. The ground on the hills is covered with bushes of bilberries or blueberries; the ground in the flat land near the rivers is covered with strawberries, which grow here so plentifully in the fields, that one can lie down and eat them. Grapevines also grow here naturally in great abundance along the roads, paths, and creeks, and wherever you may turn you find them. I have seen whole pieces of land where vine stood by vine and grew very luxuriantly,

[NAHC Note: The following introduction/dedication paragraph has not been incorporated in previous English translations and is added here.  The English translation in most publications starts with “Het lant” /the country – Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, PhD.]

“Nadat ik mijn voorgaende besloten heb ik mij in memorie gekomen dat U.E/. oock in't schrijven begeert hadde per te weten van onse wilde ofte Indiaenen sal van selfs kondighg het Lant alhier ende Indiaenen/so veel my wel bekent is selfs gehoort ofte gesien hebbe beschrijven.”

“After I had finished my previous letter, it came to my memory that Your Honor also wished to have in writing something to get to know more about our savages [Wilden] or Indians. Therefore, I shall of myself write an account here of the land and the Indians, to the extend that I know it well, having heard or seen it firsthand.”