The summer had passed away and autumn was beginning to tinge the varied foliage of the forest with all its gaudy hues of yellow, and scarlet, and purple, when the Nausetts, and such of their Pequodee friends as desired to share in their hunting expedition, set forth from the village. Many women and girls accompanied the caravan, the greater part on foot, and bearing on their shoulders either the younger children, or a large pack of baggage; while their husbands, and fathers, and brothers, marched before them, encumbered only with their arms and hunting accoutrements. Such was, and still is, the custom among the uncivilized tribes of America, where women have ever been regarded as being very little more exulted than the beasts that perish, and have been accustomed to meet with scarcely more attention and respect. But there are exceptions to this, as to every other rule; and where women have possessed unusual strength of mind, or powers of influence, their condition has been proportionately better. Such had been the ease with Tisquantum's wife: and he had ever treated her with gentleness and respect, and had never imposed on her any of those servile duties that commonly fall to the lot of Indian squaws, even though they may be the wives and daughters of the most exalted chiefs. To his daughter the Sachem was equally considerate, and none but the lightest toils of domestic Indian life were ever required from her; nor was any burden more weighty than her own bow and quiver ever laid upon her slender and graceful shoulders, when she followed her father in his frequent wanderings.
On the present occasion, as the journey promised to be unusually long and uninterrupted, Tisquantum obtained for her a small and active horse of the wild breed, that abounds in the western woods and plains; and of which valuable animals the Pequodees possessed a moderate number, which they had procured by barter from the neighboring Cree Indians. The purchase of this steed gave Henrich the first opportunity of remarking the Indian mode of buying and selling, and the article that formed their medium of commerce, and was employed as money. This consisted of square and highly-polished pieces of a peculiar kind of a peculiar muscle-shell, called quahock, in each of which a hole was bored, to enable it to be strung on a slender cord. The general name for this native money was wampum, or white, from the color of those shells most esteemed; but a dark-colored species was called luki, or black; and both were used, of various forms and sizes, as ornaments by the warriors, and their copper-colored wives and children.