THE POCAHONTAS LEGEND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18899, 27 June 1923, Page 4

THE POCAHONTAS LEGEND.

(By Professor Ernest Scott in the Melbourne Argus.)

The search for the skull and bones of the 17th Century Indian girl Pocahontas in the churchyard of St. George’s, Gravesend, nicy be ghoulish, it may bo a case of bodysnatching, it may. as Lord Curzon has said, bo an example of antiquarianism run mad; but one cannot help being interested. Rather more than a hundred years ago Cobbett fetched Thomas Paine’s bones from America, intending to place them in a mausoleum, but was never able to raise tha money for the purpose; and what became of the bones after Cobbett's death no man knows. Mr Edward Gaston, the American .gentleman who has been responsible for the recent exhumations, intended to return tha compliment by taking Pocahontas’s bones back to America, but has been unable to identify them. Pocahontas was but on© of several Indians, women as well as men, who went to England and died there in the early years of colonisation in America. We may assume that the special interest taken in her arises from the story told by Captain John Smith of her intercession to save his life when her father, Powhatan, had resolved to hatter his brains out. That incident more than anything else has kept the name of Pocahontas alive. She has a certain importance in the history of Virginia apart from her alleged kindness to John Smith, and her marriage to John Rolfe, but it is the romance that Smith wove that has given her universal fame.

But is the story true? One of the most recent of American historians insists that “by every standard of good criticism” it must be rejected. Other writers of unquestionable repute, John Fiske among them, maintain that there is no reason for refusing to believe it. All admit that Captain John Smith was not always dependable. Though a very courageous man and a colonial leader of remarkable initiative, he was also a preposterous braggart. He related things about himself which were as incredible as the exploits of Amadis de Gaul or the Seven Champions of Christendom. Ha wrote very lively prose, which evinces a prancing imagination, together with a lusty vigour; and there was no incident of hia bustling life that he did not adorn in tha somewhat strenuous pages of his several hooks. Some hold that, notwithstanding hia disposition to boast, he was substantially truthful; others have denounced him as a “literary mountebank.” Our immediate question, however, is as to the probable truth or falsity of the Pocahontas story, and to that we may confine attention. Smith wrote four books about Virginia——namely (1) "A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Rote as rlath Happened in Virginia, since the First Planting of that Colony,” published 1608; (2) "A Map of Virginia, with a Description of the Country,” 1612; (3) “The General History of Virginia,” 1624; and (4) “New England’s Trials,” 1620. The fourth of these has no interest in this matter, as it dealt only with the fisheries. In the first and second books, Smith gave an account of Virginian affairs as he had known them, but he said nothing about being rescued from Powhatan by the intervention of hia daughter. On the contrary, he described his treatment by the Indian chief as having been friendly in the extreme. Powhatan, he said, listened with interest to his description of life in the civilised world, and in return gave him an account of the Indian tribes of Virginia and their relations with each other. Hia life was not even threatened. Smith and Powhatan “pow-wowed” in the wigwam in an entirely amicable manner, and at the end of the interview the chief sent him back to Jamestown in charge of trusty members of the tribe, well guarded and quite pleased with his. experiences. If the exciting incident with Pocahontas had occurred, why did not Smith mention it in the “True Relation” and in “The Map of Virginia”? Smith had really said all that he knew about Virginia in these two books. But after he returned to England he became a hack writer and compiler. He then gathered together all he could collect of the writings of others, added fresh matter of hia own—whether he invented much of it or - not, is the point at issue—and published the “General History.” It was there for the first time that the Pocahontas story appeared. Smith’s narrative, as related in the third book of the "General History,” is that he was captured by the Indians while exploring the country, and taken into the presence of “Powhatan, their Emperor.” First, they feasted him to fatten him up, then they held a consultation, and at length two great stones were brought before Powhatan. “Then,” to quote his own words,' “as many as could lay hands upon him dragged him to them, and thereon lay his head, and being ready with their clubs to beat out his brains. Pocahontas, the king’s dearest daughter,' when no entreaty could prevail, got his head in her arms, and: laid her own upon his to save him from death; whereat the emperor was contented he should live to make him hatchets, and her bells and copper.' Afterwards, Smith, said, ha was initiated a member of the tribe. He had a naive way of dropping into tags of verse to give point to his narrative; and bn this exciting incident he penned a rhyming reflection : They say he bore a pleasant shew, But sure his heart was sad; For who can pleasant be, end rest, That lives in fear and dread; And having life suspected, doth It still suspected lead.

The champions of Smith’s veracity allege that in all probability the reason why the Pocahontas story did not appear in the “True Relation” in IGOB was that that book was' not published entirely as he wrote it. Smith sent the manuscript from Virginia to London, and it was seen through the press by an anonymous editor. That editor, it is true, states in his preface that “something more was by him written, which being, as I thought, fit to be private, I would not adventure to make it public.” But the adventure With Powhatan and Pocahontas was not a private matter,, if it had occurred. It was an incident of verygreat interest. Moreover, Smith never complained that the story was omitted from his first book, and there is no reason whatever to conjecture that it was ever there. It has also been suggested that it may have been omitted because it was the policy of tho promoters of the Virginia colony not to allow anything to_ be published that might discourage immigration. But if what Smith published in his third book had been included in the first, the effect surely would have been rather attractive than otherwise. He related that the country was bountiful, that the Indians were friendly, that the fears of all the colonists were abandoned when they learnt of the treatment accorded to him, that Pocahontas herself was a very pearl, and that there was plenty more like her, crowds of nymphs “crowding, pressing, and hanging about him, most tediously crying, ‘Love you not me? Love you not me?’ ” It wfis the most alluring thing in the way of an immigration “stunt” that had ever been or ever has been attempted. The whole of the arguments based upon tha supposed omission of the Pocahontas story from the “True Relation” are unwarranted conjecture. There is no evidence whatever that Smith wrote « line about it till ha was engaged upon the “General History'* some time before 1624.

There is also the striking fact that no contemporary who was at Jamestown, Virginia, while Smith was there knew anything about the story. It does not appear in any letter, nor in any of the writings published by colonists, other than his own. It might surely be supposed that when Smith returned to Jamestown he would relate his adventures, and we may be quite sure that he did. Smith was not the man to hide his light under a bushel. He was tremendously interested in himself. If he had related that he came within an aco of having his brains beaten out, but was saved by the beautiful Indian girl, it might be expected that others than he would have written about it. But none did.

Mr A. J. Doyle, in his Tery valuable work, “Tho English in America,” which is by far the soundest history written, by a non-Ameri-can writer, goes so far as to say; ‘‘l hardly imagine that anyone will now endeavour to ! uphold the truth of the most striking and best remembered episode in Smith's own story, his captivity among the Indians, and his rescue by Pocahontas." Mr Doyle was over-sanguine. There are still Americana whose work one respects, who refuse to give up Pocahontas. Fiske clung to her with the fondness of a parent, and Dr Tyler, the author of ‘‘England in America,” though lamenting Smith's exaggerations and inaccuracies; refuses to convict him of deliberatelyconcocting a story having no foundation. Unfortunately we know that Smith did concoct stories. He stated, for example, that King Sigismund, of Transylvania, granted to him a coat of arms as a reward for his mightily heroic exploits when lighting in Hungary. This coat was submitted to the Hungarian Heraldic Society for an opinion. It was so grotesquely impossible that it was greeted with shouts of laughter. Smith was, in short, a very queer character. He was a■ men of powerful personality, whose leadership in Virginia was marked by rare qualities of persistence and energy. But ho was over-conscious of his heroism, and his imagination too often got the better Of his sense of veracity. If he had been a lesser man in respect to those merits which ere conspicuous in him, probably nobody would have preserved any credence for the Pocahontas legend.