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Crellic Pontain Sectory 09
Page 12
On the infrequent occasions when the dry-paintings are employed, the medicine-man in charge of the ceremony directs his assistants, at daylight, to begin the painting. When it is finished he takes his station close to the easternmost figure of the painting, on its northern side. At the right of the medicine-man sit twelve chosen singers with a drum. The four masked _gaun_, or gods, at the same time take their places at the cardinal points. The patient then enters from the east and sits down on the head of the large figure in the centre of the dry-painting. As he does so the medicine-man commences to sing, and is joined by the chorus at once. They may sing the song four times, or sing four different songs, or any multiple of four, at the pleasure of the medicine-man. When the songs are finished the four masked personages scrape the colored earths into a heap about the patient and rub them in handfuls over his body. If this ceremony proves to be ineffectual, it is believed to be the will of the gods that the patient be not cured.
Attempts were made by the early colonists to grow other crops which, for various reasons, did not thrive at Jamestown. Some plants, like bananas, pineapple, citrus fruits, and pomegranates, could not withstand the cold Virginia winters. Other plants, including rice, cotton, indigo, sugarcane, flax, hemp, and olives, did not grow vigorously for one reason or another, and repeated efforts to cultivate them usually resulted in failure. Mulberry trees grew well at Jamestown (the leaves were used to feed silk worms), but attempts to make silk were not successful commercially.
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