A fire ceremony

Indian men and women, dressed and undressed, participate in a fire ceremony in this watercolor by John White, the English artist who in 1585 accompanied a failed colonizing expedition to Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. Five people in the group hold rattles likely made out of hollowed-out gourds or small pumpkins and filled with pebbles or fruit stones.

Thomas Hariot, who accompanied White and the colonists, recorded witnessing such a ceremony at the palisaded town of Pomeiooc in July 1585.