Native American Village of Pomeiooc

Date Uploaded: 06/14/2024

Native American Village of Pomeiooc

Hand-colored version of Theodor de Bry's engraving of the American Indian town of Pomeiooc. De Bry's engraving, "The Towne of Pomeiooc," was originally published as an illustration in Thomas Hariot's 1588 book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.

In the center of the image stands Pomeiooc, which consists of several buildings surrounded by a circular palisade. In the middle of the town is a fire around which numerous people are sitting, kneeling, and standing. In the bottom left corner two footpaths lead away from the town. Outside the palisade in the upper left corner is a field of what appears to be corn.

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. An unidentified artist applied the color to this version of de Bry's engraving, apparently without having seen John White's original watercolor painting, "Indian Village of Pomeiooc."

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