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 018

[NAHC Note: this is a comment by a previous translator and not the opinion of NAHC: "Here Megapolensis tells further of the moral laxity of the Mohawks which was common to both the Iroquois and Algonquins."  

A few sentences were also left out of the translation by these translators,  and we have added them here for completeness. – Vanessa Bezemer Sellers, PhD.]:

  paragraph left out of the translation:

“[weder]om op ende worde weder een paer ende al hebben ze vrouwen evenwel laten het hoereeren niet/ en soo zy een ander sijn Vrouwe konnen beslapen/ dat is een kloekheyt) die Vrouws personen sijn oock uytermaten tot hoereren genegen/sy slapen om de drie waerdye van 1. 2. 3. Schellingen/ ende onsen duytsen verloopen sich seer veel met de hoeren.”

and again be one pair. And although they have a wife, they don’t stop whoring if they can sleep with another man’s wife, that is just considered a clever trick. The women are also exceedingly inclined to whoring; they will lie [with a man] for the trifling value of 1, 2, or 3 Schellings, and our Germans consort very much with the whores.”

The women, when they have been delivered, go about immediately afterwards, and be it ever so cold, they wash themselves and the young child in the river or the snow. They will not lie down (for they say that if they did they would soon die), but keep going about. They are obliged to cut wood, to travel three or four leagues with the child; in short, they walk, they stand, they work, as if they had not lain in, and we cannot see that they suffer any injury by it; and we sometimes try to persuade our wives to lie-in so, and that the way of lying-in in Holland is a mere fiddle-faddle. The men have great authority over their concubines, so that if they do anything which does not please and raises their passion, they take an axe and knock them in the head, and there is an end of it. The women are obliged to prepare the land, to mow, to plant, and do everything; the men do nothing, but hunt, fish, and make war upon their enemies. They are very cruel towards their enemies in time of war; for they first bite off the nails of the fingers of the captives, and cut off some joints, and sometimes even whole fingers; after that, the captives are forced to sing and dance before them stark naked; and finally, they roast their prisoners dead before