Tags: Algonkian
near-death/out-of-body story reported by the English cartographer,
colonist and author Thomas Hariot (or Harriot) in 1588 (in A
briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia);
other editions of that book
A near-death and soul-travel account from North America
published in English in 1588.
Not even a day after having published Philemon
Holland’s 1603 translation of
Plutarch’s out-of-the-body/near-death story, I came across an even
slightly earlier account in English, albeit one whose source was not
European but North American. On pages 37-38 of A briefe and true
report of the new found land of Virginia: of the commodities there
found and to be raysed, as well marchantable, as others for victuall,
building and other necessarie vses for those that are and shalbe the
planters there; and of the nature and manners of the naturall
inhabitants: discouered by the English colony there seated by Sir
Richard Greinuile Knight in the yeere 1585. [...], the author of
this work of propaganda written to help further the colonisation process
in Virginia, Thomas Hariot [other spelling: Harriot], provides some
valuable information on the locals (the Algonkian people), their
customs, the natural environment (resources), etc.
Strangely, the excerpt reproduced below (taken from the
first edition, published in 1588)
offers some similarities with
both Plutarch’s and Cahagnet’s
accounts (astral travel, visions
of both heavenly and hellish abodes, the latter
being sufficient to
cause the ‘soul travellers’ to shun their previously sinful lifestyles),
which makes me wonder whether these three texts either somehow belong to
the same literary tradition (thereby pointing to their fictional nature)
or, to borrow from Carl G. Jung, they might rather not be archetypal in
nature – i.e. part of some kind of primordial mental concept which Jung
ascribed to the collective unconscious.
As usual, words in green, in
bold or both in green and bold indicate emphasis which is mine,
not the author’s.
Excerpt to
be found on pages 37
and 38
of the 1588 edition of A briefe and true report of the new found
land of Virginia […]:
[…] They beleeue
also the immortalitie
of the soule,
that after this life as soone as the soule is departed from the bodie
according to the workes it hath done,
it is eyther carried to heauen the
habitacle of gods, there to enioy
perpetuall blisse and happinesse, or els to a
great pitte or hole, which they thinke to bee in
the furthest partes of their part of the worlde towarde the sunne set,
there to burne continually: the
place they call Popogusso.
For the confirmation of this opinion, they tolde mee
two stories of two men that had
been lately dead and reuiued againe, the one
happened but few yeres before our comming into the countrey of a wicked
man which hauing beene dead and buried, the next
day the earth of the graue beeing seene to moue, was taken vp
againe; Who made declaration where his soule
had beene, that is is to saie very neere entring into Popogusso, had
not one of the gods
saued him & gaue him leaue to returne againe, and teach his
friendswhat they should doe toauoid that terrible place of torment.
The other
happened in the same yeere wee were there, but in a towne that was
threescore miles from vs, and it was tolde mee for straunge newes
that one beeing
dead,
buried and taken vp againe as the first, shewed that although his bodie had lien dead in
the graue, yet his
soule
was aliue, and
had trauailed
farre in a long broade waie, on both sides whereof grewe most delicate and pleasaunt trees, bearing more rare and excellent fruites
then euer hee had seene before or was able to expresse, and at length came to most braue and faire
houses, neere
which hee
met his father, that had beene dead before, who gaue him great charge to goe backe againe
and shew his
friendes what good they were to doe toenioy the
pleasures of that place, which when he had done he
should
after come againe.
What
subtilty soeuer be in the Wiroances and
Priestes, this opinion worketh so much in manie of the common
and
simple sort of people that it maketh them haue great respect to their
Gouernours, and also great care what they do, to
auoid
torment after death, and to enioy
blisse; although notwithstanding there is
punishment ordained for malefactours, as stealers, whoremoongers,
and other sortes of wicked doers; some punished with death, some
with forfeitures, some with beating, according to the
greatnes of the factes.
And this is
the summe of their religio[the
original has a macron character instead of the letter n, to save
space], which I learned by hauing special
familiarity with some of their priestes. […]
- The electronic text for the 1588 edition made available online by
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (through Paul Royster): https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/etas/20/.
