A rectangular building of pole and mat construction with curved roof, is raised perhaps 6 feet above the ground on eleven timber posts. The front end is open and the mat covering thrown back over the roof. The raised floor is made of either narrow poles or cane. Below it, in front, is a border or pelmet of cane or mat, perhaps 18 inches deep. On the raised floor lies a row of ten pale, naked and emaciated bodies placed close together on their backs, their arms by their sides and their heads almost reaching the front edge of the floor. Their hair is shown drawn out from the scalp to a point or knot. At their feet, four large rectangular bundles of matting with curved tops lie two by two against the end wall of the building. The figure of an idol ('Kywash') is represented sitting slightly elevated, with legs flexed and hands on knees, close to the right-hand wall and some little way back. It appears to be dressed in black throughout with a white streak or opening on the chest (giving the effect almost of a jacket and trousers with a white undergarment showing in front). Its feet and hands are black and on its head is a large round hat, brownish in color, with a rolled brim, coming to a point at the top. The face is pale and looks to the front. Under the floor of the building, inside the wooden posts, are two reddish-brown skins spread out on the ground, one on top of the other. In front a small spoke-shaped wood fire is burning. The building stands on a leveled foundation a little wider than itself and extending to the front of the drawing.
Inscribed in dark brown ink, at the top, "The Tombe of their Cherounes or cheife personages, their flesh clene taken of from the bones saue | the skynn and heare of theire heads, wch flesh is dried and enfolded in matts laide at theire | feete. their bones also being made dry, ar couered wth deare skynns not altering | their forme or proportion. With theire Kywash, which is an | Image of woode keeping the deade. "
John White (c 1540-1593) was an English artist & early pioneer of English efforts to settle North America. He was among those who sailed with Richard Grenville to the shore of present-day North Carolina in 1585, acting as artist & mapmaker to the expedition. During his time at Roanoke Island he made a number of watercolor sketches of the surrounding landscape & the native Algonkin peoples. White had been commissioned to "draw to life" the inhabitants of the New World & their surroundings. During White's time at Roanoke Island, he completed numerous watercolor drawings of the surrounding landscape & native peoples. These works are significant as they are the most informative illustrations of a Native American society of the Eastern seaboard. They represent the sole-surviving visual record of the native inhabitants of America encountered by England's first settlers.
