One of the Chief Ladies of Secota

About this illustration

Creator

Theodor de Bry

Date created

1585–1586

License

This work is believed to be in the public domain. Users are advised to make their own copyright assessment and to understand their rights to fair use.

Source

Original image housed by Documenting the American South / UNC Libraries

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“On of the Chieff Ladyes of Secota.” Theodor de Bry’s engraving of an American Indian woman, published in Thomas Hariot’s 1588 book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. In the foreground, the woman is depicted from both the front and back, standing with arms crossed and a bare chest. Her arms and legs are painted or tattooed and she wears a fringed skirt. In the background is a body of water in which several people are rowing canoes and fishing.

The text accompanying the image reads:

The women of Secotam are of Reasonable good proportion. In their going they carry their hands dangling down, and air dadil in a deer skin very excellently well dressed, hanging down from their navel unto the middle of their thighs, which also covers their hind parts. The rest of their bodies are all bare. The fore part of their hair is cut short, the rest is not over Long, thin, and soft, and falling down about their shoulders: They wear a Wreath about their heads. Their foreheads, cheeks, chin , arms and legs are pounced [tattooed]. About their necks they wear a chain, either pricked or painted. They have small eyes, plain and flat noses, narrow foreheads, and broad mouths. For the most part they hang at their ears chains of long Pearls, and of some smooth bones. Yet their nails are not long, as the women of Florida. They are also delighted with walking in to the fields, and beside the rivers, to see the hunting of deers and catching of fish .

Theodor de Bry was a Flemish-born engraver and publisher who based his illustrations for Hariot’s book on the New World paintings of colonist John White. These depictions of the landscapes and residents of North Carolina provided Europeans with some of their earliest notions of what the North American continent looked like. This engraving was based on White’s watercolor painting, “Indian Woman of Secoton.”