Did Pocahontas really save John Smith? That depends, researchers say
Story-Date: 06:09 a.m. PST Sunday   , August 2, 1998

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Did Pocahontas really save John Smith? That depends, researchers say


By Sonja Barisic
Associated Press Writer


WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) -- It was a love story for the ages: the young
Indian princess Pocahontas, madly in love with the English Capt. John
Smith, begging the chief -- her father -- to spare her lover's life.

Ever since Smith first wrote it down more than 300 years ago, there have
been stories, art works, books -- and the Disney movie extravaganza
"Pocahontas."

The only problem: the story may not be true.

While historians have long questioned the truthfulness of Smith's account,
two researchers who examined previously ignored Indian oral histories say
the explorer and leader of the Jamestown colony may have simply
misunderstood native rituals.

Smith claimed that the Powhatan Indians kidnapped him and that chief
Powhatan, the head of a 32-tribe kingdom in the Chesapeake Bay area, was
about to kill him with a club when Pocahontas threw her body over his and
begged her father to spare him.

Researchers Karen Aneiro and Robert C. Hale looked into Indian traditional
storytelling -- a source overlooked in favor of Smith's written account.
They presented their findings this week at a conference of the
International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences at the
College of William and Mary.

The Powhatans had no written language, and historians and scholars until
recently ignored the Indian tradition of passing down stories orally.

In this case, that tradition suggests that Smith was captured by the
Indians "but that he wasn't going to be beaten to death," said Ms. Aneiro,
of the University of Florida. "It was an adoption ritual. It was something
he didn't understand."

Seth Mallios, a University of Virginia anthropologist and archaeologist,
agreed that Smith may have misunderstood a ritual.

Mallios said that to be accepted into Indian society, a foreigner had to
undergo a ritual "death" and then be symbolically reborn. During the ritual
death, the tribe would make preparations that would appear to the untrained
eye like the setup for an actual execution.

"You can imagine how terrifying it would have been. John Smith didn't
understand it," Mallios said.

The Indians may have been trying to make an ally out of the English by
ritually adopting Smith, realizing the settlers were powerful, said Hale,
an environmental scientist at William and Mary's Virginia Institute of
Marine Science.

Smith wrote about the 1607 event in a book published in 1624. By then,
Pocahontas and anyone else who might have disputed his version was dead,
Ms. Aneiro said. She added that Smith claimed to have been rescued by "fair
maidens" two other times.

Hale acknowledged that the oral tradition may contain some inaccuracies as
well, so exactly what happened may never be known.

Smith's version has long been doubted by anthropologists who theorized that
he borrowed the story from other accounts he had read to make himself look
more adventurous.

In 1607, Pocahontas was only 10 or 11 years old.

Still, the myths persist because they are attractive, Hale said.

"Everybody loves a love story," he said.



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