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The religion of these Chesapeake Bay Indians, like that of all the other Indians formerly found on the coast, consisted in a belief in a great number of devils, who were to be warded off by powwows and conjurations. Captain Smith gives an account of a conjuration to which he was subjected at Uttamussick when a captive in December, 1607.
Sometimes these houses were of great length, accommodating many families at once; and at Uttamussick, in the peninsula formed by the Pamunkey and Mattapony, were three such structures sixty feet in length, where the Indians kept the bodies of their dead chiefs under the care of seven priests, or medicine-men.
It was Captain Smith's fortune during his captivity to have a personal experience of this nature. After the conjuration at Uttamussick Smith was brought to Werowocomoco and ushered into a long wigwam, where he found Powhatan sitting upon a bench and covered with a great robe of raccoon skins, with the tails hanging down like tassels.
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