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Title: The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century
        An ethnohistorical survey

Author: Catherine Marten

Release date: September 17, 2024 [eBook #74431]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Plimoth Plantation Incorporated, 1970

Credits: Steve Mattern, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAMPANOAGS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ***





  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=.

  There are 563 separate Notes anchored in the main text; these anchors
  are indicated by [number]. The Notes remain in the same place as in
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  There are only two Footnotes in the book. These anchors are indicated
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  THE WAMPANOAGS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY:

  An Ethnohistorical Survey/CATHERINE MARTEN

  [Illustration: (Ink drawing of Plimoth Plantation.)]

          OCCASIONAL
          PAPERS
          IN
          OLD
          COLONY
          STUDIES

          NUMBER 2/DECEMBER 1970

  PUBLISHED BY PLIMOTH PLANTATION INCORPORATED        $1.00




  =OCCASIONAL PAPERS IN OLD COLONY STUDIES= is a multi-disciplinary
  journal, appearing at irregular intervals and publishing original
  contributions generally in the fields of Sociology, History,
  Anthropology, and Demography which treat as a subject Plymouth
  Colony prior to the 19th century.

  =OCCASIONAL PAPERS= are available for purchase at varying rates
  at Plimoth Plantation or by mail. Correspondence concerning the
  publication and its contents should be addressed to The Editor,
  Occasional Papers, Plimoth Plantation, Box 1620, Plymouth,
  Massachusetts 02360. Contributions of original material as
  described above will be accepted for reading and possible
  publication. Manuscripts and photographs or drawings are sent at
  the author’s risk and will be returned only when accompanied by a
  self-addressed stamped envelope.

  Plimoth Plantation is a non-profit educational organization which
  receives no tax moneys and is supported principally by admissions
  to historical exhibits, contributions, and memberships.

  =OCCASIONAL PAPERS IN OLD COLONY STUDIES/NUMBER 2/DECEMBER 1970=
  EDITOR: CATHERINE MARTEN
  Cover Design: Eric G. Engstrom
  Map: Charles McCann
  Typesetting and Printing: R. E. Smith Printing Co., Inc., Fall
  River, Mass.




[Illustration: This map showing the approximate locations of the
various New England tribes in the early 17th century is based upon
the following sources: Harold E. Driver and William C. Massey,
COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS, TRANSACTIONS OF THE
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, ns. Vol. 47, part 2, 1957; Douglas
Edward Leach, FLINTLOCK AND TOMAHAWK: NEW ENGLAND IN KING PHILIP’S
WAR, 1959; Charles C. Willoughby, ANTIQUITIES OF THE NEW ENGLAND
INDIANS, 1935]




PREFACE


The paper which follows was written by me in 1965. It was originally
intended to serve as an in-house guide for Plantation staff to use
when explaining Wampanoag culture to visitors. The absence of any
other comprehensive treatment of Plymouth’s aboriginal population has
made the paper an item much in demand by Plantation staff, visitors,
and members of the academic community. Hopefully its publication in
the OCCASIONAL PAPERS series will make this ethnographic information
available to an even greater number of interested persons.

                                                              CM




FOREWORD

by Dr. Alex F. Ricciardelli, Director of the Haffenreffer Museum
of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Anthropology at Brown
University.


This monograph represents the only extensive ethnography we have of
the Wampanoag Indians and provides us with the best understanding
available of Massasoit and his people at the time they occupied the
coastal areas of southern New England. The author has consulted all
the known historical sources and arranged the material into a series
of topical categories which will serve as a handy reference to the
literature. Useful also are the author’s comments regarding those
parts of Wampanoag culture about which we presently have no knowledge.

Southern New England has been one of the neglected areas in the
anthropology of North America. This seems strange when one considers
that the oldest museums and departments of anthropology in the United
States are located here. The usual explanation seems satisfactory
enough at first glance: there has been no extensive record of
anthropology in southern New England because there are no subjects
for study. The indigenous people were among the first to experience
the ravages of contact with European colonists. Disease, war, and
forced migrations throughout the 17th and 18th centuries effectively
depopulated the area of most of its original inhabitants. Those
few who remained were supposedly detribalized and merged with the
Europeans. Even their artifacts were carted off across the ocean to
be placed in cabinets of curiosities. To this day some of the best
and largest ethnographic collections of New England Indian material
culture are found in European museums and private estates. Further,
Colonial towns were located on prehistoric and early historic Indian
camps and villages, and in other ways the growing industrial complex
of the Northeast covered over or erased the Indian sites. As a
result, at the end of the 19th century, when anthropology as a formal
discipline emerged, the native peoples and most of the material
vestiges of their presence were gone.

There is undoubtedly much truth to this explanation, but one must
also examine the history of anthropology in order to understand
the reasons for this relative neglect. Shortly after the turn of
the century, the subjects anthropologists were seeking inevitably
led them westward to the Plains, the Southwest, and other places
where the frontier had only recently passed. Anthropology at that
time meant studying peoples who still retained, or at most had only
recently lost, their tribal organization. Tribal societies were
rapidly disappearing and it was crucial that anthropologists bend
all their efforts to creating a record of these peoples’ cultures
before they were irretrievably lost. The small groups of surviving
Algonkian Indians in southern New England, who retained few visible
evidences of their traditional culture, therefore attracted almost no
attention. Frank G. Speck is a notable exception among the younger
anthropologists who were prominent in shaping the discipline in the
United States.

The practice of anthropology today is considerably different from the
anthropology of 70 years ago. Tribal cultures and societies which
are still relatively intact continue to be an important concern,
but new dimensions for the study of man have appeared. These new
developments make southern New England an important resource for
anthropological study. Inter-ethnic relations are now attracting the
attention of students to a society which is no longer considered an
inevitable melting pot. Portuguese, French-Canadians, Italians, and
other immigrants have been a prominent part of New England towns and
cities for decades, but we do not yet understand the processes by
which they have adapted to American culture. These ethnic segments
include the Wampanoag and other Indian groups who have retained their
Indian identity after over 300 years of intensive contact. They
obviously represent an important phenomenon for study. Many Indian
groups are now moving to large cities, including Boston, and some
anthropologists are trying to understand how tribal peoples adapt to
urbanism as a way of life.

Ethnohistory, the writing of ethnographies from historical documents,
is another relatively new way of practicing anthropology. Although
the source materials for southern New England are not as rich as
those from other areas in North America, there is still a great
deal which can be mined from them. Early colonists traded, fought,
and proselytized the Indians and the accounts and records they left
contain many possibilities for studying cultural processes. We are
learning that the value of documents as source materials is as much
a function of their ability to answer the kinds of questions that
intrigue us as it is a matter of bulk.

It is true that archaeology in New England has been generally less
immediately rewarding than in many other areas of North America. The
poorer conditions of preservation, the apparent absence of deeply
stratified sites and the dense settlement pattern in this region
have contributed to this condition. With the emergence of what is
now being called historical archaeology, however, new potentials are
being realized in New England. The efforts of Plimoth Plantation
are showing dramatically that Colonial history can be meaningfully
rewritten through the lenses of anthropology and that archaeology
does not by any means end where history begins. Indeed, a new
understanding is being achieved for that period in early Colonial
history when an immigrant European culture was transformed into
something distinctively American.

For many anthropological studies that will undoubtedly be made about
southern New England, the culture of the 17th century Indians will
be an important baseline. This monograph will be one of the valuable
sources for scholars undertaking such studies.




THE WAMPANOAGS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

An Ethnohistorical Study

_by Catherine Marten_

_And also those which should escape or overcome these difficulties,
should yett be in continuall danger of the salvage people; who are
cruell, barbarous, and most trecherous, being most furious in their
rage, and merciles wher they overcome; not being contente only to
kill, and take away life, but delight to tormente men in the most
bloodie manner that may be; fleaing some alive with the shells of
fishes, cutting of the members and joynts of others by peesmeale; and
broiling on the coles, eate the collops of their flesh in their sight
whilst they live, with other cruelties horrible to be related._


One of many fearsome prospects awaiting Europeans who would
settle upon the American continent was thus described by William
Bradford—Indians. In faraway Europe this simplistic view of the cruel
and hostile primitives that inhabited the New World seemed adequate.
But Bradford and his friends—known to history as the Pilgrims, who
settled at Plymouth Massachusetts in 1620—were destined to see one
group of North American Indians in a different way. Who were the
Indians that greeted the Pilgrims and what can be told of their
culture?

The Indians that inhabited New England are often collectively
designated as Algonquians. This name actually signifies a group of
tribes whose languages are related and are therefore classified
together as members of the Algonquian language family. Speakers of
Algonquian languages are not restricted to New England, however;
rather they are spread widely over the North American continent. To
the west on the Great Plains such tribes as the Blackfoot and the
Arapaho, to the north the Naskapi, Abnaki, and Micmac, and to the
south along the Atlantic Coast the Powhattan and the Chickahominy are
a few examples of members of this large linguistic family. Besides
noting that the languages spoken by these groups are related to one
another, we can also speak of some broad similarities in culture
shared by speakers of Algonquian languages. However, by the time of
European contact both languages and cultures had diversified enough
that Algonquian speakers from widely separated areas would not have
understood one another’s speech and customs.

The tribe of Algonquians with which this monograph is chiefly
concerned is the Wampanoags, which inhabited the immediate area
around New Plimoth and from whose ranks came such familiar figures
as Squanto, Massasoit, Hobomock, and Metacomet (King Philip). This
tribe was also sometimes called the Pokanokets, after Pokanoket,
Rhode Island, where the Sachems kept their principal headquarters.[1]
Because they were closely related linguistically and culturally,
however, one can with justification include information pertaining
to the immediate neighbors of the Wampanoags—the Nausets, the
Massachusetts, and the Narragansetts.[2] The lumping of these groups
for the purpose of more completely filling out a cultural description
of the Wampanoags is further legitimatized by the fact that since
the devastation caused by a plague in 1616 or 1617 the members of
these tribes had intermixed to some extent anyhow. The Indian village
of Patuxet had formerly been located on the site where the Pilgrims
were to establish New Plimoth; it had been wiped out by a plague. The
sole survivor from Patuxet was Squanto, who had joined the band of a
sachem called Massasoit.

Political relationships among the Indian groups of southeastern New
England were variable depending upon the leadership abilities and
popularity of their several sachems at various times. Massasoit and
his immediate successors seem to have been quite powerful rulers and
to have held the several sub-tribes of Wampanoags into a cohesive
body.[3] At various times the Wampanoags ruled the Nauset of Cape
Cod. They were frequently allied with the Massachusetts and were
frequently at war with the Narragansetts. At the time when the
Pilgrims arrived both the Wampanoags and the Massachusetts were
considerably weakened in numbers by the plague of a few years
earlier, which had left the Narragansetts relatively unscathed. The
Wampanoags seem to have recognized in the new arrivals a potential
ally, hence the Pilgrims were welcomed, albeit cautiously.[4]

The pages that follow attempt to describe as fully as possible
the culture of the Wampanoags as it would have been during the
lifetime of Plymouth Colony—1620 to about 1690. A few words are in
order in regard to sources of information. The normal procedure for
gaining ethnographic information is for a trained observer—usually
an anthropologist—to live among the people he wants to study,
interviewing informants and observing with the aid of notebook,
tape recorder, and camera the activities and habits of the groups
under study. This sort of a systematic investigation, however, is an
invention of modern anthropology and is a phenomenon dating only to
the last hundred years or so. Long before that time, contact with the
technology, ideology, and diseases of Europeans had so altered the
culture and diminished the numbers of most of the Eastern seaboard
tribes, including the Wampanoags, that such a study would have been
impossible. To describe the culture of the Wampanoags, therefore,
it is necessary to turn to the historical record—both written and
archaeological—for the only surviving information on these people.

The best sources for information on Wampanoag culture are the
journals and letters of travelers and settlers of the 16th and
17th centuries. Among the Pilgrims, Edward Winslow proved to be an
exceptional ethnographer, having recorded a number of insightful
observations on Indian culture. John Winthrop of Massachusetts Bay
sent a collection of Indian artifacts back to England, some of
which are still preserved in the British Museum. Of lesser value to
the present purpose are writings of the latter half of the 17th
century by missionaries who were trying to teach Christianity to
the Indians. Their interests were in the progress of the civilized
customs of a godly existence, and their writings do not focus upon
aboriginal behavior. Information about artifacts and structures,
often incompletely described by earlier chroniclers, can be added to
by a study of the archaeological remains of Indian activity.

There will be omissions from the cultural description—questions
never to be answered. But it is hoped that the bringing together in
ethnographic format of what information is extant will give some
insight into and further the understanding of Wampanoag culture as it
was at approximately the time the Pilgrims encountered it.




DEMOGRAPHY


Estimates of population for the southern New England area are
variable. The most widely quoted figure is that arrived at by
Mooney—25,000 for the entire New England area, prior to the 1616-17
plague.[5] Other writers place the number at around 20,000 for
southern New England alone.[6] In all likelihood, the lower number
is the more nearly correct. Population estimates made by visitors to
the New England area in the 16th and 17th centuries were based in the
main upon what could be observed in the course of a coastwide voyage.
And while Indian population appeared dense, the actual situation was
one of a considerably concentrated population along the immediate
coast, where rich marine resources were available, and a very sparse,
often seasonal, occupation of vast tracts further inland.[7]

By the time the Pilgrims arrived, the population of eastern
Massachusetts had declined greatly, as a result of the epidemic
which we have mentioned before. No one really knows what the disease
was that took such great numbers of Indians. The Massachusetts
were virtually destroyed—first by the plague and then by wars with
the Abnaki during the early decades of the seventeenth century.
Population declined from perhaps three thousand to a mere five
hundred between the years 1615 and 1630.[8] The Wampanoags had
suffered less, but the effects of the plague were still felt heavily
by them. Prior to the plague their numbers are estimated to have
been two to three thousand, but death depopulated large tracts of
land.[9] Altham writes that the nearest Indian town to Plymouth was
fourteen miles away.[10] Gookin called them, “a potent nation in
former times....”[11] In 1620 they numbered perhaps something over
one thousand.[12] The Narragansetts, however, were untouched by the
plague; they are said to have numbered some four thousand.[13]

The general result of the settlement of Europeans in New England was
to further the trend of Indian depopulation. Whereas the Europeans
might hope to have developed or inherited a degree of immunity to
the diseases which they carried, such infections proved fatal to
the Indians almost without exception. In 1632-33 the Narragansetts
suffered a smallpox epidemic which killed some seven hundred, and
at the same time it destroyed what remained of the Massachusetts
tribe.[14] The well-meaning attempts of missionaries to Christianize
the Indians by civilizing them and putting them into European clothes
and houses also brought changes to the detriment of their general
health. The “civilized” custom of washing, for example, removed the
coating of animal fat that the Indian customarily wore to protect
himself from cold and insects and exposed his body to previously
unknown physiological shocks. Wars of the colonial period also took
their toll of the Indian population.

As far as can be told from available information, the density of
population in New England just prior to European colonization was .22
Indians per square mile.[15]




HISTORY AND CULTURE CHANGE


The few remnants of Wampanoag oral tradition are vague on the point
of tribal history and origins. Most often mentioned is the idea that
they came from somewhere to the south and west of their present home.
Indeed, this may, according to the thinking of anthropologists,
be the direction from which they received the corn that they were
cultivating in at least the 16th century. However, the question of a
true tribal history must, as is so often the case with pre-literate
peoples, remain unanswered.

Early explorers and settlers had their own ideas as to the origins
of the Indians they found in the New World. A popular belief was
that these were descendants of one of the Biblical “lost tribes of
Israel”. Some scholars went to great lengths to show that this was so
by comparing the languages and religious concepts of the two groups.
Along with this idea went a belief that the skin of the Indians
was actually light, but that it was dyed brown during infancy.[16]
Whatever may have been the course of their pre-contact history, the
arrival of the white man was certainly a significant event for the
culture of the Indians of southeastern New England.

Changes were being introduced into Indian culture long before the
arrival of the first permanent European settlers. Fishing and whaling
industries brought large numbers of ships (nearly four hundred in
1578) to the vicinity of Newfoundland and Cape Breton; incidental
trade in furs between the Indians and these vessels covered a
six-hundred mile range that undoubtedly included New England.[17]
Indian graves which date from this period contain European trade
items—the first evidence of the changes being introduced into native
culture.[18] The Indians seem especially to have appreciated the
value of the metal tools which the Europeans brought.[19] Their own
use of metal had been limited to the making of ornaments out of
native copper. For heavy work, such as felling trees and dressing
game, stone tools were used.

The increasing substitution of metal tools for stone ones brought
about changes in Indian technology that continued through the
seventeenth century. The situation for New England Indians in general
is summarized by Willoughby:

  After and during the first two or three decades of the seventeenth
  century the Indians received from European traders, especially
  from the French and Dutch, cloth, kettles, hatchets, and many
  other objects, and the graves of that period have yielded numerous
  articles of this nature. The native industries of the people
  rapidly declined. It was principally among the women that the finer
  arts survived for a time, such as the better class of bag and
  basket making, porcupine and moose-hair embroidery, etc., although
  the men continued for a period the production of their excellent
  wooden bowls and drinking cups.[20]

Technological change was not, however, only a matter of the loss of
skill at aboriginal crafts. The Indians were quick to learn useful
new techniques from the English settlers. They learned the art of
pewter casting, and thus produced pipes and buttons.[21] A further
use for their new-found knowledge of metallurgy was noted by Governor
Bradford:

  They have also their moulds to make shotte, of all sorts, as
  muskett bulletts, pistoll bullets, swan and gose shote, and of
  smaler sorts; yea, some have seen them have their scruplates to
  make scrupins themselves, when they wante them, with sundery
  other implements, wher with they are ordinarily better fited and
  furnished then the English them selves.[22]

The history of contact between primitive peoples and Europeans has
tended to be similar throughout the world, in that the first to
contact and deal with the natives were usually entrepreneurs looking
for new profits, followed by missionaries looking to save souls. The
Wampanoags likewise experienced this phenomenon. While it was the
intention of those who went there to settle to bring Christianity
to the Indians, preparations for such a monumental task were not
very well laid. English colonists had their hands full for a number
of years just getting a living. They had made no provisions for the
maintenance of missionaries to the Indians, and English congregations
were not eager to spare their own ministers for the task. Thus, it
was not until the middle of the seventeenth century at least before
systematic attempts to change the Indians’ belief system were begun.

Notable among those who took up the mission to the Indians of
southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island were Roger Williams,
John Elliot, and the Mayhews, father and son. Quite a number of
converts were made.[23] Converted Indians were encouraged to dwell
together in what came to be dubbed “praying towns”. Such Indians were
required to adopt European culture wholeheartedly in terms of dress,
housing, habits, etc., and they were required to learn to read as
part of their conversion so that they could study the scriptures. The
majority of Indians seem to have refused conversion; however, the
change on the part of some of them can hardly but have had influence
upon the rest.

Another introduction from European culture was alcohol, previously
unknown to the Wampanoags and their neighbors. This became a popular
item of trade, and some Indians undertook the cultivation of apples
for the purpose of making cider.[24]




FOOD QUEST


=Annual Cycle=: The environment of coastal southern New England was
rich in a variety of wild food resources. Because these resources
were available seasonally in several differing localities, the
Wampanoags, who lived by a combination of hunting, fishing,
collecting, and horticulture, moved several times during the year.

Beginning in about April, large numbers of Indians, probably the
populations of several localized winter camping groups, would gather
at the falls of certain rivers for the upstream runs of fish such as
herring.[25] Migratory birds were also taken at this time.[26] The
period of taking fresh water and androgynous fish along streams and
in lakes continued until planting season, when the Wampanoags moved
to the coast.

Summer was a time of gardening; it was also the time when the vast
array of marine resources was exploited. In addition, summer brought
an abundance of shore birds. Planting involved two crops, with people
sometimes moving from a house by an early field to one by a later
field in the middle of the summer.

Deer were hunted in the fall; men moved away to the forest to catch
the migrating animals. Sometimes women and children would be included
in the hunting expedition, if the distance to be traveled was not too
far from their summer home. But some people stayed in their summer
residences through the hunting season, probably to harvest the last
crop. Hunting sometimes lasted until the snow was too deep to move in.

After hunting season the fall and summer encampments were abandoned,
and people moved inland, joining with other summer village groups to
take up winter quarters in what Williams describes as “thick warme
vallies”. There was greater protection from the weather away from the
shore, and the warm weather food resources were gone—even the fish
moved offshore into deeper waters. From December or January until
April, Indians occupied these winter camps and lived on food they had
stored during summer and fall and on what could be caught through the
ice or trapped during the winter. With the return of spring, they
would once again congregate at their fishing places.[27]

=Collecting=: A number of wild plants were utilized by the Wampanoags
for food. These included wild peas, strawberries, gooseberries,
raspberries, currants, chestnuts, acorns, walnuts, ground nuts,
and the Jerusalem artichoke.[28] Doubtless other nuts, roots, and
berries not specifically named by the early observers were also
collected.[29] The ground nut (_Apios tuberosa_) was one of the most
important of the wild roots that the Indians used for food.[30] It
also helped the Pilgrims keep away starvation during the winter of
1623.

A part of the inventory of collected foods consisted of shellfish.
Clams were dug by the women at low tide. Also noted specifically
were: horseshoe crab, lobster, oyster, crab, soft-shelled clam, and
mussel.[31] The following passage tells of the troublesome quest for
lobsters:

  This is an every dayes walke, be the weather cold or hot, the
  waters rough or calme, they must dive sometimes over head and
  eares for a Lobster, which often shakes them by their hands with
  a churlish nippe, and bids them adiew. The tide being spent, they
  trudge home two or three miles, with a hundred weight of Lobsters
  at their backs, and if none, a hundred scoulds meete them at home,
  and a hungry belly for two dayes after.[32]

=Fowling=: The various types of fowl that were taken included
turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, cormorants, and cranes.[32] This
is only a partial list (again the kinds cited specifically by
contemporary sources) of the kinds of birds that were actually
hunted; there was an abundance of both shore and land birds to be
taken at various seasons.[33] Turkeys seem to have been particularly
numerous.[34] Pigeons were abundant in Worchester County, so much so
that Williams describes it as having been called “Pigeon Countrie”.
They were attracted by ripe strawberries and the old garden plots of
the Indians, and they were eaten in great numbers because they were
well-liked and easy to kill.[35]

The techniques of taking fowl were various. Shooting with bow and
arrow was one method, and Indians were very anxious to get guns
and shot from the English for the same purpose.[36] Williams says
that hunting involved enduring the weather, “... wading, lying, and
creeping on the ground, &C.”[37] The method of getting cormorants was
to sneak up on them at night as they slept on the rocks along the
shore.[38] Netting birds at their feeding places was another way of
capture.[39]

=Hunting and Trapping=: Among the animals hunted or trapped were
deer, moose, beaver, bear, wolf, wild cat, racoon, otter, muskrat,
and fox.[40] While all of these were eaten, the importance of the
smaller animals lay mainly in their pelts. Deer seem to have been
the most important of the animals that were hunted.[41] Moose and
bear were also of major importance in New England, according to
the evaluation of William Wood.[42] Probably the deer was more
important to southern New England groups like the Wampanoags, with
the frequency and relative importance of moose rising as one traveled
northward.

Techniques for taking deer fall into three categories: stalking and
shooting, the use of snares, and the use of drives.[43] The stalking
method calls to mind the familiar image of an Indian stealthily
pursuing a deer through the forest with great skill and patience,
using bow and arrow as his weapons. No less important, however, was
the use of snares. A snare for deer was made by bending a springy
sapling down, fastening it in place, and affixing some sort of noose
that would catch the deer by the leg when he, by stepping into it,
released the fastening that held the tree down. Acorns were used to
bait the snare. Wood tells us that the traps were “... so strong as
it will tos a horse if hee be caught in it....”[44] When the Pilgrims
went exploring on Cape Cod they encountered such a device:

  As we wandered we came to a tree, where a young sprit was bowed
  down over a bow, and some acorns strewed underneath. Stephen
  Hopkins said, it had been to catch some deer. So as we were looking
  at it, William Bradford being in the rear, when he came looked
  also upon it, and as he went about it, it gave a sudden jerk up,
  and he was immediately caught by the leg. It was a very pretty
  device, made with a rope of their own making, and having a noose
  as artificially made as any roper in England can make, and as like
  ours as can be....[45]

These devices were also sometimes used for trapping moose, bears,
wolves, wild cats and foxes.[46]

Most hunting was carried out during the fall, after a spring and
summer of watching the habits and locations of the deer.[47] Ten
to twenty or more men from a village would move into temporary
quarters in the woods to hunt at this time, each man retiring to
his own well-defined hunting territory of “... two, three or foure
miles, where hee sets thirty, forty, or fiftie Traps....”[48] It was
necessary to tend such a trapline closely, since the human hunter
competed with other carnivores for his kill. A circuit of the traps
was made every two days. Even so, the hunter might find that a wolf
had been there before him, seeing which, he would set to building a
trap for the wolf as well.[49]

Unlike the two proceeding techniques, taking deer by means of
drives required the cooperative efforts of a number of people. This
number might range from twenty to three hundred, according to one
observer.[50] Fences of brush were built, sometimes a mile or two
in length, through the woods, in the shape of a funnel. Deer were
chased into the wider end, and Indians waited at the narrow end to
shoot them as they passed. Since it was possible for the deer to
leap over the fence, the hunters were careful not to startle them.
Working at night, they set snares for the deer that had escaped their
arrows.[51] If the evidence from other Indian groups can be applied
in this case, it can be said that the hunting party included women
and older children as well as the hunters themselves, and that these
former were stationed along the length of the brush fence, outside
it, to keep the deer from jumping over.

There is evidence that another technique of hunting common in North
America, especially among the Algonquians farther north, was also
used by the Wampanoags: driving the deer into water where they are
more vulnerable to the hunters. There is no direct description of
this process taking place, but there is the information that laws
made special provision for paying the sachem within whose territory a
deer was shot in the water.[52] And Williams tells us that there is a
special word to designate the skin of such a deer.[53]

Another hunting device, used for beavers, otters, and wolves, was
the deadfall.[54] One variety was made by piling up a large number
of rocks, designed to fall on the animal which entered the trap.[55]
This style of trap was used because these were animals capable of
gnawing their way out of a trap that left them alive.[56]

Apparently allied to hunting, at least in part, was the practice of
setting fire to the woods at intervals, in order to burn out the
undergrowth.[57] Where this was not done the woods were difficult
to travel through, and thick scrub would have hampered deer drives
considerably.[58]

=Marine Hunting=: Marine hunting was not a major activity of the
Wampanoags as it was of the Indian groups further to the north;
however, it was practiced to some extent. Seals were taken as they
napped on rocks in the warm sun.[58] Various species of whale were
also common along the more exposed coasts, but it is not known if the
Wampanoags actually hunted them in boats. They did make use of both
the flesh and the oil of those that were cast up on the beaches.[59]

=Fishing=: Fish were a major dietary item in the spring and continued
to be of importance during the remainder of the year. Both fresh
and salt water fish were taken. These included: bass, bream, cod,
mackerel, flatfish,[60] skate, haddock, striped bass, sturgeon,
Atlantic salmon, shad, herring, frostfish,[61] eels, lampreys, trout,
roach, dace, pike, perch, catfish and pickerel.[62] Of these the
salmon, trout, shad, herring, bass, and sturgeon run up the fresh
water streams from the sea.[63] Trout, roach, dace, pike, perch,
catfish, and pickerel are fresh water species only.[64]

Techniques for catching fish varied with the circumstances.[65]
The hook and line apparently came in for a good deal of use.[66]
However, the only specific fish for which its use is mentioned are
bass and cod.[67] To take these fish, the hooks were baited with
lobsters.[68] Probably the hook and line was used for ice fishing
during the winter, and if so it was also used for pike, perch, bream,
and pickerel.[69]

Nets were used to take sturgeon.[70] Nets were placed across rivers
at the falls to take bass. The trapped fish were then shot with
arrows or speared.[71] Bass were also caught in weirs.[72] The
tending of nets went on at night as well as during the day, the
fishermen resting on the shore near small fires until it was time
to check their nets.[73] Sturgeon were also taken at night—using
a different technique. A torch was waved about over the side of
the canoe to lure the fish. When the fish came near, an Indian in
the canoe would drive a harpoon into his belly. Thus secured, the
struggling fish was dragged back to shore.[74] The method of taking
eels was to wade into the water, tread them out of the mud with the
feet, then grab them.[75]




DOMESTICATED ANIMALS


The Wampanoags’ only domesticated animal at the time the Europeans
arrived was the dog.[76] Later, those Indians who adopted European
culture as part of their conversion to Christianity seem to have
begun keeping the types of livestock—cattle, sheep, goats, pigs,
chickens, etc.—brought by the settlers.[77]




AGRICULTURE


Horticulture was a major occupation of the Wampanoags from the spring
until fall. Chief among their crops was the native American corn,
_Zea mays_. Historical sources mention a number of colors—red, blue,
yellow, and white.[78] Of the squashes and their relatives (all
grouped into the family Cucurbitacae) there are mentioned pumpkins
and cucumbers.[79] Also cultivated was the native American variety of
tobacco, _Nicotiana rustica_.[80]

Gardening was work done by women, except for tobacco growing, which
was the business of men.[81] The implements of cultivation were
such things as clam shell hoes, and fish were used for fertilizer.
During the time that the corn was growing the women would weed
it and protect it from birds. Watch houses might be built in the
fields where the gardener or her older children would sit all day to
frighten away birds.[82] Sometimes hawks were captured, tamed, and
kept nearby the house in order to chase the other birds away from the
corn fields.[83]

Corn might be harvested green or allowed to ripen in the fields,
depending upon the use for which it was intended. Green corn seems
to have been a favorite food, and to get as much as possible two
plantings might be made during a summer.[84] At harvest time the
women gathered in the corn and prepared it for consumption or
storage.[85]

When preparing a new field the first step was to remove the forest
cover. Trees were cut down, leaving only the stumps; the branches
were burned on the spot. Ashes left from the burning enriched the
soil. Gardens were then planted between the stumps.[86] A field thus
prepared would gradually diminish in fertility over a period of years
of continuous use, despite the addition of organic fertilizers (fish)
with each planting. When this happened, the field was left fallow
for a period of time, during which a cover of weeds and brush would
develop. This cover was then burned off, the ashes worked into the
soil, and the field planted again.[87]




FOOD PROCESSING


=Preservation and Storage=: Both animal and vegetable foods were
preserved by drying.[88] With this technique, there was constant
danger of spoilage through dampness. Prior to the arrival of the
European settlers, salt was not available to the Wampanoags for
food preservation.[89] The method of drying fish and shellfish was
to cut it into thin strips and hang it on a scaffold over a fire
prepared for that purpose. Both the sun and the fire worked to dry
the fish quickly; the fire served the additional purpose of keeping
away flies, which would have spoiled the food.[90] At night or
when the weather was humid, the drying fish was moved to the warm,
smoky interior of the wigwam to hang above the fireplace.[91] Corn,
chestnuts, currants, beans, and acorns were also preserved by drying.
There is no description of the process, save that they were spread
out on mats.[92]

Vegetable foods were stored in specially constructed pits in the
ground. After they had been dug, the pits were lined with woven mats.
The dried fruits or vegetables that were to be stored were put into
large baskets (The Pilgrims told of digging up one such basket that
had a capacity of three or four bushels[93]); the baskets were put
into the pits, covered with more mats and perhaps wooden planks, and
the whole thing was covered with earth so that a small mound marking
the place was formed.[94] When such could be obtained, a metal pot
rather than a basket might serve as a storage container.[95] The
dried fish was also stored for winter use, but there is no mention of
its being put into the storage pits. It might have been kept in some
sort of woven or bark container in the house.[96]

=Food Preparation=: Meat and fish were prepared by boiling or
roasting.[97] Meat was roasted by putting it on the end of a forked
stick placed in the ground near the fire.[98] Fresh or dried meat,
fish, and shellfish were cut into small pieces and boiled into a
stew—whose constituent parts probably varied according to what was
available on any given day. A pot of this stew was probably kept over
the fire almost all the time, and as some was eaten new ingredients
were added. As the following passage by Wood suggests, it was “...
made thicke with Fishes, Fowles, and Beasts boyled all together; some
remaining raw, the rest converted by over-much seething to a loathed
mash....”[99] Vegetables were also added to the stew pot. Jerusalem
artichokes, ground nuts and other roots, pumpkins, squashes, corn,
and beans are mentioned specifically.[100] Walnuts, acorns, and
chestnuts were ground into a powder and added to the broth to thicken
it.[101] Clam juice, which functioned as a substitute for salt, was
added as seasoning.[102] Williams tells of another sort of dish,
prepared from the heads of bass, “... the braines and fat of it being
very much and sweet as marrow”.[103] Notes by John Winthrop give the
designation _Sukatash_ to a dish which is venison, fish and Indian
corn boiled together.[104]

Vegetable foods were also prepared in a number of other ways and
combinations. Whole corn was boiled—with or without beans.[105] Corn
ground into meal was an important item in the diet of the Wampanoags.
Corn kernels were dried and parched in the coals of the fire. Ashes
were then sifted out of the parched corn, and it was ground fine
with hand milling equipment. A woman then sifted the meal through a
basketry sieve to catch out unground lumps, and the result was a meal
called _Nocake_. Nocake was the food of anyone when on a journey away
from home. A few spoonfuls made a meal; it was taken with water to
facilitate swallowing.[106]

For use at home, the parched meal might be mixed with water and
boiled into a porridge.[107] In a more elaborate recipe it was mixed
with crushed strawberries, made into dough, wrapped in leaves and
baked in the ashes to make a kind of bread.[108] It was also made
into small cakes that were boiled. Williams mentions a dish made by
mixing corn meal with powdered dried currants, “... which is as sweet
to them as plum or spice cake to the English”.[109] He also says that
clam juice was used as a seasoning for bread.[110]

Of the nuts used by the Wampanoags, acorns required additional work,
since the bitter tannic acid had to be removed from them by some sort
of leaching process before they could be eaten. This was done by
boiling.[111] Oil was extracted from walnuts and used for a variety
of purposes.[112]




FOOD CONSUMPTION


The diet of the Wampanoags, because of their seasonal cycle of
resource use, varied considerably. While many kinds of food were
preserved for use beyond their season by drying, the supply was
probably not so great that the diet was identical throughout the
year, if only in terms of the relative quantities of the kinds of
food eaten. The diet of the Wampanoags included several varieties of
land animals,[113] of which deer were probably the most important.
Fresh and salt water fish, shellfish, fowl, and marine mammals, such
as were available, were also eaten. Corn, beans, and cucurbits,
which they raised, plus various wild nuts, roots, and fruits made
up the vegetable part of the diet. While there is evidence that the
Indians in Maine used maple sugar, there seems to have been none
used in southeastern New England aboriginally.[114] Altogether,
according to Bennett, who has made a study of the diet of the
Indians of southeastern New England, the Indian diet included more
vegetable products than the diet of Europeans living in the same area
today.[115]

Squashes came to replace corn as the dietary mainstay in the late
summer.[116] Clams seem to have been dug in all seasons of the year;
they are spoken of as a food to which the Wampanoags turned when
other sources of food dwindled.[117] Acorns were also a food turned
to when the preferred diet was scarce, although sometimes they were
eaten when there was plenty of corn, as a novelty item.[118] Writing
of a visit to the Plymouth area in June, Martin Pring noted that the
food the Indians were eating at that time of the year was mostly
fish.[119]

There is not a great deal known about Wampanoag eating habits,
but some general impressions can be put together. Morton tells us
that “... they feede continually”.[120] Wood, on the other hand,
notes that it was “... their fashion to eate all at some times,
and sometimes nothing at all in two or three dayes....”[121] The
apparent contradiction is probably the result of the two observers
looking at different sets of cultural circumstances. When there was
food available in abundance, everyone probably ate, according to
his wishes, out of the stew pot at any time. There were also formal
meals held on at least the following occasions: when a guest arrived
(_i.e._ visiting Englishman) and when groups would gather for games
and dances. Wood gives a description of what such a “sit-down” meal
was like:

  ... dishing it up in a rude manner, placing it on the verdant
  carpet of the earth which Nature spreads them, without either
  trenchers, napkins, or knives, upon which their hunger-sawced
  stomacks impatient of delayes fals aboard without scrupling
  at unwashed hands, without bread, salt or beere: Lolling on
  the Turkish fashion, not ceasing till their full bellies leave
  nothing but emptie platters ... eating three or foure cornes with
  a mouthfull of fish or flesh, sometimes eating meate first, and
  cornes after, filling chinkes with their broth ... At home they
  will eate till their bellies stand forth ready to split with
  fullness....[122]

At this type of meal the men ate, and the women waited upon them,
being paid by the favor of a bite from time to time.[123] Eating was
done from individual wooden bowls, with fingers or spoon, depending
upon the consistency of the food.[124]

When one was away from home on a journey and not near enough to any
settlement to go there for hospitality, he ate from his pouch of
parched corn meal. This might be eaten quickly if he were in a hurry
to be off again, by gulping down three spoonfuls of corn meal with
some water. A more leisurely meal was one for which the traveler took
the trouble to build a fire and cook the meal to eat it hot.[125]

Food seems to have been shared liberally with anyone who was around
when people were eating, no matter what it was or how much there was
at the time.[126]

Diet was one area in which the arrival of the Europeans seems not to
have had much influence. Composition of the diet remained the same as
it was aboriginally until the time of King Philip’s War.[127]




DRINK, DRUGS AND INDULGENCE


Prior to the arrival of the Europeans there was no knowledge of
alcohol among the Indians of the New England area. Once introduced,
however, it became a popular item of trade, and Indians learned how
to produce it for themselves.[128]

The Wampanoags and their neighbors, however, did smoke the native
American variety of tobacco, _Nicotiana rustica_.[129] This strong
variety of tobacco would not be appealing to modern American tastes.
The only place where it is used commercially today is in the USSR.
In one instance at least—where the writer characterized the tobacco
as weak—it is likely that some was mixed with other plant material
preparatory to smoking.[130] Tobacco leaves were picked green, dried,
crushed, and smoked in pipes.[131]

Tobacco was used frequently.[132] Smoking was a pleasant diversion.
When friends met on the trail they would stop, smoke together,
and talk.[133] Tobacco apparently also was used by women.[134]
Besides being a refreshing indulgence, taking tobacco was thought
to be a helpful remedy “... against the rheume, which causeth the
toothake....”[135]




LEATHER, TEXTILES, FABRICS


=Work in Skins=: Most of the clothing worn by the Wampanoags was
made from the skins of animals. Deerskin was an excellent material
for clothing, since it was tough but thin enough to be made pliable,
was large enough to be used with a minimum of piecing, and was
readily available in the environment. Moose hide was used for similar
purposes, but being heavier it was perhaps more popular for making
shoes.[136]

Deerskin was scraped to remove the flesh, and the tanning process
involved working oil into the hide to make it soft and also resistant
to water.[137] Thus prepared, the skin used in a pair of leggings
could stand to be gotten wet, rung out, hung up and dried by the
fire without being harmed by the experience.[138] When a deer was
killed during the winter, the thick coat of hair was usually left
on the hide.[139] Moose skins were de-haired as a matter of course,
according to Morton.[140] Deer and moose skins with the hair removed
were decorated by painting or by embroidery.[141] To be a proper skin
for wearing, a deerskin had to have the tail left on.[142]

The skins of other game were also used as clothing. Bear, otter,
raccoon, beaver, fox and cat skins are mentioned as having been used,
although the particulars of their preparation are not recorded.[143]
Sometimes the skins of animals not available in the immediate
vicinity were traded for from neighboring tribes.[144] The skins of
all these animals, including deer, were used also for bedding.[145]
Leather was used in the manufacture of bags for carrying fire
lighting equipment, tobacco, and parched corn meal. The latter type
is described as being long and narrow and carried either slung on the
back or tied around the waist.[146]

Contemporary observers do not mention any further uses of leather by
the Wampanoags. Among several groups of Indians, such as those who
lived by hunting on the Great Plains, leather served not only for
clothing, but as the only material available for housing and cordage.
Living as they did in the woodlands, the Wampanoags had available
a variety of suitable plant material which they used for various
kinds of basketry and cordage that served the multitude of purposes
served by leather in other regions. Thus among the Wampanoags leather
might have been used as the lashings to hold the framing of houses
together, or plant fiber might have served this purpose, or both.
Such alternatives were available, but it is not known exactly what
use the Wampanoags made of them.

=Cordage, Netting, Basketry=: The Wampanoags used the stems and
fibers of several plants for containers, house coverings, nets,
clothing, etc.[147] Among the plants used were: bulrushes, bent
grass (perhaps also other types of grasses), maize husks, “silk
grass”, wild hemp (also called Indian hemp and dogbane—_Apocynum
cannabenum_), flag leaves, basswood fiber, and the bast of other
trees with fine inner bark, such as the linden and slippery elm.[148]

Most cordage was made from wild hemp. Basically, the manufacture of
cordage consisted of removing the long fibers from the stems of the
plant and joining these by twisting and braiding until the desired
thickness and length of cord was obtained. The Indians appeared
quite skillful in this craft: “... their cordage is so even, soft,
and smooth, that it looks more like silke than hempe....”[149] Wild
hemp cordage was used in several ways. It was used to make fishing
lines.[150] It was also used for tying hooks onto these lines.[151]
Hemp cordage was looped into fishnets.[152] One of these, used for
sturgeon, is described as being 30 to 40 feet in length.[153] Large
storage bags were made out of this material, in a weaving technique
known as twining. These were flat and rectangular in shape; their
capacity was five or six bushels. They were used for storing food
both in the underground pits and inside the houses.[154] Similar bags
were also made out of bast fiber.[155]

Hemp is mentioned as having been used in making baskets, where it
probably served as weft strands.[156] Hemp cordage was also used to
sew together a certain kind of house covering mat.[157] And it was
used, along with grasses for woven capes.[158] Mantles were also
woven out of turkey feathers, or the feathers of other birds, and
cordage.[159] The feathers were probably twisted in among the hemp
strands.[160] Such weaving was done without looms.

Matting was produced by two basic techniques, by sewing or by weaving
the component elements together. In sewn mats, flag leaves were sewed
together with wild hemp thread, using a bone needle.[161] Woven mats
were plaited from bulrushes.[162] These latter were used to line the
interior of the house, to sit upon, and for spreading out food to
dry.[163] Matting was an item that came in for extensive use in the
daily lives of the Wampanoags. Besides being a building material, it
was used to line storage pits; it also lined or covered their graves.

Basketry was another important item made by the Wampanoags, although
their use of basketry was not as extensive as in certain other North
American Indian groups. Basketry everywhere serves what is basically
a container function, and among the Wampanoags there were available
pottery, birch bark boxes, pouches of leather, wooden dishes, and
later the metal pots and kettles brought by Europeans—all of which
could carry out the job of holding something.

Baskets were made in a number of sizes and shapes, of several
different materials, and of varying fineness depending upon the
purpose to be served.[164] There were two techniques for weaving
baskets, twining and plaiting, though there were probably enough
variations upon these basic techniques that not all baskets looked
alike to the casual observer. Twined basketry was the more common
type at the time that the Europeans arrived in New England. The
baskets of “Hempe and Rushes” that Wood describes were probably made
by this technique.[165] The manufacture of twined basketry involves
wrapping a horizontal weft element, the hemp in this case, around
what is usually a more rigid warp, the bulrushes. The basketry
made by the plaited technique is what is meant by the term “splint
basketry”. In this case, both warp and weft are equally rigid
“splints” and are combined by placing each alternately over the other
so that, in the most basic pattern, a checkerboard effect results.
Basketry made by this technique became more popular during the
historic period, and eventually this was the only type made by the
Indians in the New England area. At the time New England was being
colonized, the main use of splint basketry was in the processing of
corn. Square sieves for sifting corn meal were made by the plaiting
technique, with varying grades of mesh to sort out ground and hulled
corn for various uses.[166] Collecting baskets for harvesting corn
were also made by this technique. The basket was worn strapped to the
back, secured by a strap across the chest. A larger version of the
basket stood at the edge of the field, for transporting the harvested
ears of corn back to the house.[167]

Willoughby gives this description of obtaining and processing the
materials for splint baskets:

  ... small ash, white oak, or other suitable trees, were cut in the
  spring. The logs were sometimes soaked in water, although this
  was not always necessary. They were then peeled and beaten with
  wooden mauls until the annual growth layers were separated one from
  another. These were split into various widths and assorted, strips
  of uniform size being bound together in bunches or coils.[168]

Baskets were also used to carry the parched corn meal of a traveler
(in place of the deerskin pouch).[169] Large baskets, an alternative
to bags of hemp, were used to store food in the underground storage
pits.[170] One kind of arrow quiver was made of basketry.[171] When
moving from place to place during the year, basketry and soft woven
bags seem likely to have been the containers in which the Wampanoags
carried their baggage.[172]

Very few decorated baskets are known to have survived from this
period. The reports of early observers note that baskets were
decorated in various colors.[173] A basket seen by the Pilgrims is
described as being “... curiously wrought in black and white in
pretty works....”[174] But from such scant information it is possible
to generalize about decorative style.[175]




CLOTHING


The basic dress for both men and women was the breech clout—a length
of deerskin that was looped over a belt in back, passed between the
legs, and looped over a belt again in front.[176] In post-contact
times this garment was sometimes made of cloth.[177] The breech clout
was worn at all times by adults.[178] Female children wore such a
garment or its equivalent from early infancy; male children went
naked until they were ten or twelve years old.[179]

The Wampanoags did not wear a great deal of additional clothing. For
additional protection from insects and cold, the Indians usually wore
a thick coating of animal or vegetable fat.[180] The Wampanoags might
put on leggings when traveling through scratchy undergrowth. Leggings
consisted of two tubes of deerskin, extending from ankle to groin,
fastened into the moccasin at the lower end and held up by attaching
them to the belt.[181] Leggings were worn by both sexes; those worn
by the women may have been somewhat shorter.[182] Leggings were
also worn as a protection against the cold, especially by the older
people.[183]

Skin capes were a common item of clothing for both sexes.[184]
Women’s capes, about twice as long as those worn by men, are
reported to have hung down behind like a train.[185] Capes for
summer wear were of deerskin—either worn hair side out or made of
de-haired skins. For winter wear the hair was left on and turned
to the inside.[186] The skins of Beaver, otter, racoon, bear,
and fox—the smaller ones being sewed together—were also used for
winter mantles.[187] Mantles made of turkey feathers were mentioned
previously.[188]

Champlain reported that Indians on Cape Cod (probably Nauset) wore
capes woven of grass and hemp fibers.[189] These extended to the
thighs and may have been worn in summer as a protection against
insects. Or, perhaps they were for special occasions. One fragment
of such a mantle, excavated along with a burial near Manchester,
Massachusetts, was made of twilled bast fiber.[190] The lower edge of
the garment was fringed.[191]

The skin mantle was usually worn passed under the right arm, brought
over the left shoulder, and the two ends fastened.[192] For traveling
or other activity the garment was bound tight against the body with
a belt.[193] In very cold weather the exposed arm was covered with a
detachable fur sleeve which was tied on.[194] In the absence of the
sleeve, the mantle might be allowed to hang loose, and the wearer
alternately cover whichever shoulder was exposed to the wind as he
walked.[195]

Both men and women wore moccasins. The preferred material for these
was moose hide, but in its absence, deerskin served.[196] Everyone
went barefoot in the summer, but they usually carried their moccasins
slung on their backs in case of having to travel over very rough
ground.[197]

Contact with Europeans brought changes in the style and the material
of some Indians’ clothing. Indians were encouraged to adopt English
styles of dress as part of the process of their conversion to
Christianity. Many, however, found the European style of clothing
a nuisance. Wood says: “... their chief reasons they render why
they will not conforme to our English apparell, are, because their
women cannot wash them when they bee soyled, and their means will
not reach to buy new when they have done with their old; and they
confidently beleeve, the English will not be so liberall as to
furnish them upon gifture: therefore they had rather goe naked than
be lousie....”[198] Often, articles of English clothing were worn
for special occasions.[199] Some Indians began selling all their
skins to European traders and using cloth to make their traditional
garments.[200] The cloth which they preferred was a blanket material
called “duffils” or “trucking cloth”.[201] Whatever the style and
material of their clothing, however, the Wampanoags preferred to wear
only the loincloth when they were in their own houses.[202]

=Ornament=: Copper or brass, breast-plates, necklaces, bandoliers,
etc. are often mentioned by explorers who visited the New England
coast prior to the establishment of permanent settlements.[203]
A change in fashion apparently took place among the Indians of
southeastern New England during the early historic period, however,
for colonial writers describe the same types of ornaments as being
made of shell.

Breast-plates were solid sheets of copper or brass hammered thin and
flat.[204] They were about a foot in length and half that wide.[205]
Sheet copper was also made into tubular beads. These were about four
inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. They were made by
bending the sheet of metal around a stick from which the pith had
been removed to form a hole for stringing.[206] Tubular beads were
strung together (long axes parallel) to make bandoliers. Bandoliers
were worn diagonally across the chest or sometimes as belts around
the waist.[207] Similar fillets made of shorter copper beads were
probably worn as headbands.[208] Tubular copper beads strung end to
end were worn as necklaces.[209] Gorgets and pendant earrings were
also made out of copper and brass.[210]

By the time the Pilgrims arrived, shell ornaments apparently had
replaced the metal ornaments which earlier chroniclers said were
worn by everyone, for none of the colonial writers mentions Indians
wearing copper or brass ornaments.[211] Most shell ornament was based
on beadwork, although shell, along with bone and stone was used for
ear pendants—cut-outs of birds, fish, and other animals.[212] By at
least 1647 wampum was the most popular style of shell beads.[213]

Wampum served as “money” and as ornament. It was introduced into
Plymouth colony as an item of exchange in 1627 by the Dutch, for
although it was common among Indians to the south, it was virtually
unknown as an item of trading value to Indians around Plymouth and
farther north.[214] Important people in the tribe had a few ornaments
of wampum prior to 1627. Altham describes Massasoit in 1623 as
wearing a belt of shell beads that were probably wampum.[215] After a
slow start in Plymouth, wampum increased in popularity until it was
common to see Indians wearing bracelets, necklaces, headbands, and
belts, woven in various designs of small purple and white beads.[216]
Collars, caps, and ear pendents were also made of wampum.[217] The
beads were strung end to end as well as being woven in bands.[218]

The wampum made in southern New England was fashioned from the shells
of the quahog, or hard-shelled clam (_Venus mercenaria_).[219] Bead
blanks were first roughed out from the whole shell then drilled with
a stone (later metal—introduced by Europeans) drill. Beads were then
strung together and ground into their final shape with an abrasive
stone.[220]

There were other, less popular, styles of shell beads and
beadwork.[221] Sometimes small discoidal beads (probably quahog and
periwinkle) were used instead of the tubular wampum for beadwork, as
necklaces, bracelets, and hair ornaments. Like wampum, these beads
were white and purple in color.[222] There were also large tubular
shell beads that were strung for necklaces.[223]

Bone and seeds were also used for beads,[224] and early explorers
report necklaces of variously colored stones.[225]

Besides jewelry, the Wampanoags used painting and tattooing as means
of personal adornment. Tattooing was done by two techniques. A sharp
instrument was used to pierce and lift a small area of skin, and
black pigment was inserted into the wound. By repeating these small
incisions close together, decorative lines were formed. This form
of tattooing was done on the cheeks; the patterns were zoomorphic
“... as Beares, Deares, Mooses, Wolves, &c., some of fowls, as of
Eagles, Hawkes, &c....”[226] The other technique of tattooing was
accomplished by “branding” with a hot iron. Geometrical shapes were
applied to the arms and chest by this method.[227]

Body painting was done in red, yellow, white, and black. Red powder
was sometimes put onto the hair.[228] The body and hair were prepared
for painting by a thorough greasing; the grease provided a bond for
the pigment.[229] Different colors might be used on various sections
of the face, or a single color might be used for the whole face.[230]
Both men and women wore paint. Paint was worn for mourning, for war
ceremonial or festive occasions, and for games.[231] Warriors used
lurid coloring to make them appear more terrible to the enemy.[232]
Painting the face black, with soot and ashes, was a symbol of
mourning.[233] There were undoubtedly many other associations between
styles of painting and specific events or social groups, but they
were not recorded by seventeenth century observers.

=Hairdressing=: Of hairdressing, Lechford reported: “They cut their
haire of divers formes, according to their Nation or people so
that you may know a people by their cut....”[234] There was also
variation in hairstyle within the social group. An unmarried girl
could be distinguished from a married women by her hair style.[235]
At marriage, the women’s hair was cut off, and until her hair grew
back she wore a covering on her head.[236] A young man who was not
yet a warrior could be identified by his short haircut.[237] Further
variation noted among the adults of the same tribe may mean that
various kin groups used distinctive styles of hairdressing.[238]
Long hair was highly prized, and wearing the hair in a tight “pony
tail” was said to make it grow faster.[239] Hairdressing was a
daily activity which involved oiling and, according to one writer,
dyeing.[240]

Probable Wampanoag hairstyles include the following: hair cut short
into bangs in the front, the remainder falling free to the shoulders;
hair braided into four braids with part of this knotted behind, and
with feathers and other sorts of ornaments stuck into the knot; hair
shaved from the front and sides of the head, the remainder left long
and made into a knot with feathers in it.[241]

Various forms of ornament, frequently feathers, were an integral
part of certain hairstyles. Turkey and eagle feathers are mentioned
specifically for this purpose.[242] Single feathers might be stuck
into a knotted portion or otherwise intertwined with the hair.[243]
Feathers were sometimes joined fan-shape and put into the hair.
Fox tails and other fur were also used for hair ornament. Strips
of deer hides, dyed red, were tied on, in the manner of a cock’s
comb.[244] Other ornaments included ribbons of European manufacture
and ornamental combs carved from antler.[245]

Specific information on female styles of hairdress is slight.
Champlain describes one style which was a combination of free-falling
hair in back and various braids for the rest.[246] Beyond this, there
are no descriptions that relate to the Wampanoags.

Sources are contradictory in the subject of facial hair. Some writers
report that Indians in this region generally despised and plucked out
what little facial hair they had.[247] Another writer of the same
period relates that these Indians were at pains to preserve their own
thin beards and to add to them by fastening on animal hair.[248]




EXPLOITATIVE ACTIVITIES


=Lumbering and Forest Products=: Prior to contact with Europeans the
Wampanoags used stone tools for lumbering. Large trees felled with
these primitive implements were used for the manufacture of dugout
canoes.[249] Birch bark, another product of the forest, provided
the material for house coverings and containers of various sorts
as well as material for another type of canoe. As the range of the
canoe birch (_B. papyrifera_) had its southern limit at Cape Anne
on the immediate coast, the use of birch bark by the Wampanoags was
probably not so extensive as that of some of their neighbors.[250]
Nevertheless, by trade and by seeking out individuals of the species
that grew beyond their range, birch bark was obtained and used as an
alternative material for the items mentioned above.

Carved wooden bowls and spoons are said to have been a craft
specialty of the Wampanoags. Burls were selected for carving material
in order to avoid the problem of splitting along the grain when an
item was subjected to repeated wetting and drying. Small objects such
as fish hooks were sometimes made of wood, and there were other more
obvious uses such as poles for house frames, arrowshafts and handles
for tools. Bast fiber (inner bark) was used for various woven items.
A red dye was made from pine bark.[251] Turpentine and pitch were
also products of the pines.[252]

=Mining and Quarrying=: Both soapstones for bowls and pipes and
native copper for ornaments were obtained aboriginally by New England
Indian groups. So far as is known, however, the Wampanoags did none
of the extraction of these materials themselves. They obtained either
the materials or the finished products through trade.[253]

Pigments were probably obtained at various local outcroppings.
Limonite furnished yellow; hematite served for some of the reds. The
stone used for tools and weapons—quartz and slate—was also locally
occurring material.[254] Clay for potting was available in the
Plymouth area.[255]




PROCESSING OF BASIC MATERIALS


There is documentary evidence on the manufacture of only a few of
the articles fashioned by the Indians out of the products of their
environment. In most cases this evidence is fragmentary. What is
available is discussed below:

=Stonecarving=: Both pipes and bowls were carved out of soapstone.
As far as is known, most of this work was done by the Narragansetts
in Rhode Island; their products were traded into the Plymouth area.
Bowls of soapstone were produced wholly or in part at the quarry
where the raw material was obtained. Working with picks and chisels
of harder stone (later, presumably, with metal tools) the craftsman
would rough out the general shape of the bowl, bottom side up, while
it was still attached to the parent block. Then he would begin
chipping away underneath the bowl and by inserting a wedge remove it
from the quarry. The inside of the bowl was then hollowed out with
smaller stone adzes and chisels.[256]

Soapstone pipes required considerable skill to manufacture, owing
to their small size. Some of these were elaborately ornamented with
carved figures, but authorities are still not sure whether the more
elaborate pipes were locally made or traded into the Narragansett
territory from elsewhere.[257] Shaping and drilling were originally
done with stone tools, but steel drills were later used in pipe
manufacture.[258]

=Metallurgy=: The Indians learned to cast metal from the English.
Pewter, brass, and presumably lead (for shot) were cast into
ornaments, buttons, ammunition, and gun parts.[259]

Buttons and other small ornaments were cast out of pewter using
one-piece moulds carved from soft stone. Finishing was done by
trimming and grinding away the rough edges. The eyes of buttons were
made by trimming the metal with a knife.[260]

=Woodworking=: The Wampanoags were noted for their skill in
woodworking. They made dugout canoes which might be as much as fifty
feet long.[261] To make a canoe a suitable tree was first selected
then laboriously felled with a stone axe. (During historic times
metal tools came to perform this function and others in the process
of manufacture.)[262] Initial hollowing out of the log was done by
burning.[263] Either the wood was set afire or hot stones were placed
on it.[264] The fire was carefully controlled; the idea was to remove
the inside and leave the outside intact on three sides.[265] The
process was a slow one, taking some ten to twelve days.[266] When
the interior had been burned out as much as possible, the job of
hollowing and smoothing was finished with shell scrapers.[267] The
outside was hewn into shape with stone hatchets and the whole craft
was finished by sanding it with an abrasive stone.[268] A similar
procedure on a smaller scale was used to fashion wooden bowls and
spoons and other such utensils. A bowl was first hollowed out by
burning and then smoothed to a high polish with abrasive stones.[269]

Birch bark canoes were made by the Massachusetts, and Pring reports
them in use by the Wampanoag.[270] The vessels or the material for
them might have been obtained in trade, or, as one writer suggests,
suitable-sized pieces of bark may have been achieved by piecing
together the bark of birches that were stunted stragglers outside
their normal range.[271] Birch bark canoes have the advantage
of being light and easily transported over portages.[272] These
canoes were joined by sewing, probably with bast fiber or something
similar.[273] The seams were caulked with rosin from the pitch
pine.[274] The vessels were strengthened by placing broad, thin ribs
across the inside rather close together.[275]

=Other Manufactures=: The Indians also made glue of a combination
of deer antler and “fishes sounds”.[276] Its use is mentioned for
fletching arrows.




STRUCTURES


=Architecture=: There were two basic architectural styles used by
the Wampanoags, both variations on a single structural type: A
framework made of poles—large ends set into the ground, smaller ends
bent to meet each other and lashed together—along with a series of
horizontal elements that crossed the uprights at regular intervals
and a covering of bark or woven mats. The smaller of the two styles
was round in floor plan, and basically hemispherical in shape.[277]
The larger type was oblong or oval in its floor plan, the side
framework being two rows of parallel poles, retaining the rounded
proof pattern.[278]

=Dwellings=: Both styles of house were used as dwellings; which one
was used depended upon the season of the year. The larger house was a
winter dwelling, the type used when the various constituent families
of a village met to live together for that season. Dimensions
varied, depending upon the size of the group that was living in the
house.[279] They are described as being about thirty feet wide and
ranging from fifty to one hundred feet in length.[280] Each family
unit that lived in the house had its own fireplace, and a smoke hole
was left in the roof over each of these.[281] There was a door at
each end of the house.[282]

During the summer, when the Wampanoags were engaged in gardening,
ocean fishing, and shellfish collecting, the smaller, round house
was used. This is the sort of house, probably occupied by one or two
nuclear family units, that early explorers saw strung out along the
New England coast.[283] The size of the house varied according to the
number of people to be fit in. Fifteen to twenty feet would probably
be a good estimate of average diameter.[284]

The fireplace was located in the center of the floor, and above it
was a smoke hole about one and a half feet across, which had a mat
to cover it when the wind was strong.[285] Doorways were low—about a
yard high—and had a mat or bark covering.[286] The location of the
door was shifted as the wind changed; several panels were left with
detachable coverings for this purpose.[287] Some Indians got boards
and nails from the English and made doors and bolts for their wigwams
after the fashion of the colonists. Both kinds of doors were fastened
at night or if the family were leaving for a journey. In the latter
case, the last one to leave fastened the door from the inside and
left the house via the smoke hole.[288]

House frames for both styles of house were lashed together. One
material mentioned for this use was walnut bark.[289] The outer
covering of the house was either bark or matting. The mats were made
of coarse grasses such as flagg or bulrush by sewing or weaving.[290]
The bark used for house coverings was birch or chestnut.[291] It was
removed from the trees when the “sap was up”. Sheets of green bark
were placed under heavy logs to keep them from curling while they
dried.[292] Bark-covered houses were considered to be warmer and
preferable to those covered with mats.[293]

Bark covering is mentioned as being customary for summer houses of
the Narragansetts.[294] Probably bark covering was the rule for
winter village longhouses, since it was warmer. For groups dwelling
along the coast and on Cape Cod, mat covering is most frequently
mentioned.[295] Portability rather than warmth was likely the
important factor in “summer” house coverings, since they also had to
serve as covering for the hunting house in the fall and the fishing
house in the spring. For this reason, mats were probably preferred
over bark for summer houses. House frames were left standing when the
family moved, and they were re-used the next year.

These houses were largely both dry and warm. There was a second layer
of matting made of bulrushes on the inside of the house for added
insulation. Since they were small and the fire was always burning,
they were quite smoky, especially when the smoke hole and the door
were closed against the elements. At such times the people inside
often had to lie close to the floor in order to breathe properly.[296]

=Other Structures=: The Wampanoags had several other kinds of
structures. Unfortunately, detailed descriptions of these are for the
most part nonexistent.

It is reported that the houses of chiefs were different from the
ordinary dwelling. They were larger, and finer mats were used for
their walls.[297] Also different was the hunting house, which served
as a base of operations for the fall hunting season. It provided
shelter and a place to store the paraphernalia used in hunting.[298]
Available data on construction tells only that they were of a more
temporary nature than the regular dwelling house and that “barks and
rushes” were used in the building.[299] Another structure was the
dance house, built for ceremonial occasions. This was a longhouse
measuring as much as one or two hundred feet.[300]

Other outbuildings in the settlement included: watch houses in the
corn fields, menstrual huts, and sweat houses.[301] Of these, there
is some information on the structural details of the sweat houses.
They were commonly constructed by excavating a cave into the side of
a hill. Sometimes an earth-covered extension was built out from the
side of the cave, forming a structure that altogether measured about
eight feet in diameter and four feet in height. The door covering was
a blanket or a skin. The sweat house was placed as near as possible
to a stream or lake, so that the bathers could plunge themselves into
cold water at the termination of the bath. Heat was provided by a
pile of stones heated on a fire.[302]




EQUIPMENT AND MAINTENANCE OF BUILDINGS


The furnishings of Wampanoag houses were simple. This was necessary
because of the Indians’ mobile life. All household equipment,
including the covering of the house itself, had to be carried from
camp to camp by the women of the household.

The interiors of houses were lined with bulrush matting. This
was decorated with painting or “embroidery”.[303] Beds were
family-sized—about six to eight feet across.[304] They were raised a
foot to a foot and a half off the ground.[305] Forked sticks were set
into the ground to hold poles, across which planks were laid.[306]
Rush mats served as the mattress, and the sleepers covered themselves
with skins, dressed with the hair left on.[307] Such a bed served the
entire family and any visitors they might have.

The remainder of the furnishings consisted mainly of the various
containers used for storage, cooking, and food service.[308] Cooking
pots were sometimes made of clay, but if possible iron, brass, or
copper kettles were obtained from the Europeans, since these were
not so easily broken.[309] Birch bark pails were used as water
containers, while various sizes of bags and baskets served to store
food.[310] Carved wooden bowls, plates, and spoons were also part of
the furniture, and some milling equipment probably occupied an indoor
place.[311]

Indoor fires were always kept burning.[312] Fuel was either what
windfalls could be gathered or an occasional larger tree which was
cut and dragged in to be fed into the fireplace by degrees.[313]
Over the fireplace, which was a simple hearth made of field stones,
there was often a square frame of sticks, supported on forked
branches.[314] Pots were hung from this framework. There was almost
always a pot of boiling food over the fire, or else there was meat
suspended on a stick whose end was buried in the ground.[315] Drying
fish or meat was also kept in the house at times—to benefit from
the fire when the weather outside was damp. Bundles of rushes, bast
fiber, hemp, and the like for making mats and baskets probably would
have about completed the inventory of household goods, save for
personal possessions and tools.[316]




SETTLEMENT


Descriptions of village layouts, locations and sizes are virtually
nonexistent. What information there is, along with some suggested
interpretations, is offered as follows:

Both Champlain’s map and drawings of Wampanoag houses at Plymouth
harbor suggest that the summer coastal settlements were laid out with
each family’s house (or in some cases, probably each wife’s house)
being located amid or beside its field.[317] Average field size was
probably about one acre.[318] Drawings made by Champlain show fields
fenced with parallel poles placed upright in the manner of a low
stockade.[319] It was in these summer villages that the Wampanoags
spent the most time during the year.[320] Actually, a family might
make one or two moves during the summer, although staying in the same
general area. When the fields planted later in the season were too
far away for convenience, the family would move into another house
near the field they were currently cultivating. Another resident of
southern coastal New England, the flea, sometimes prompted a shift in
residence during the summer. Fleas lived in the dust in the houses,
and when they became unbearable an Indian family would move to a
fresh dwelling.[321]

Reports of visitors to the southern New England coast prior to the
plague give the impression that settlements of the “summer village”
type were strung out all along the coast.[322] Settlements apparently
were variable in size.[323] Writers who made this observation may
have been looking both at actual variation in total group size and
at seasonal variation in population concentration and dispersal.
The most concentrated settlements were the winter villages.[324]
A longhouse in one of the winter villages might shelter 40 or 50
people; there is no indication as to the number of longhouses that
might have been found in such a village.[323]

Fall hunting encampments were, like the summer settlements,
dispersed. Men moved onto the lands to which they had the hunting
rights. Since more land was needed for hunting than farming, the
spread of dwellings would have been much thinner. As for the spring
fishing camps, it is known only that large numbers of people gathered
at them; sources give no hint of settlement pattern.




ENERGY AND POWER


The principal source of light and heat for the Wampanoags was the
same fire over which they cooked their meals. Additional light was
sometimes provided by torches. One variety was made of birch bark and
was used in night fishing.[324] Pine splints also served as torches,
used for lighting the interiors of houses.[325]

Both percussion and friction methods of fire-making were used. For
kindling fire by percussion the Indian carried with him a small pouch
containing the proper materials for striking a light—a piece of
spongy dry wood for tinder and stones for producing the spark. One
stone was fastened onto the tinder stick to more surely catch the
spark when it fell.[326]

Aside from fire for heat, light, and cooking, and occasional use of
the sail, no naturally occurring sources of energy and power were
controlled by the Wampanoags.




COMMUNICATION


The Wampanoags did not use any mechanical devices, such as whistles
or drums for sending messages. Instead, they used their voices to
call out information. When news had to be transmitted beyond shouting
distance, a messenger was sent. If he had trouble locating his
destination he would give a shout when he thought himself a mile
or so away, and answering calls would guide him to the village he
sought.[327]

Since they had no system of writing, all information that was to
be passed on to other people, whether news of the day or tribal
tradition, had to be memorized. To help in this task pre-literate
societies sometimes use mnemonic devices. The Wampanoag had such a
practice. Along the side of trails, near the place where some event
of historical significance had occurred, they dug small holes, about
a foot deep and a foot wide to mark the spot. These were meticulously
re-excavated when they seemed to be filling in. As a Wampanoag passed
through his country the sight of these markers reminded him of the
stories they represented. Thus reminded, he would tell them to
others.[328]




EXCHANGE


=Gift Giving=: Dances were held periodically, and at these the
dancers would dole out presents such as wampum, to the spectators.
Each man who was to dance would take his turn at it, giving away his
possessions bit by bit until he had no more to give and was exhausted
from dancing.[329]

At the Nickomo feast, held in the winter, the person giving the
feast, besides providing food for perhaps hundreds of people (the
size of the guest list depended upon what one could afford to pay
for) presented goods and money to his guests.[330] Upon receipt of
the gift, the guest would call out three times an invocation for the
prosperity of his host.[331]

=Trade=: The several groups of Indians of southeastern New England
traded among themselves in pottery vessels, wooden bowls, bows,
arrows, pipes, shell money, stone bowls, skins, and food products of
the hunt and the fields.[332] The manufacture of some of these items
appears to have been specialized according to local group. That is,
the women of one locality seem to have made cooking pots, and these
were traded to the women of other groups.[333] Wooden bowls seem to
have been the specialty of the Wampanoags. Soapstone pipes and bowls
were produced by the Narragansetts and were traded north at least to
Cape Cod.[334] At a time that was probably early in the seventeenth
century the Narragansetts also took over the production of wampum for
the region. Craftsmen spent the summer collecting suitable shells
and the winter making the beads.[335] Trade in furs among Indian
groups was not highly developed prior to the arrival of Europeans. It
seems to have been mainly a matter of trading for kinds of skins that
were scarce or finer than those in one’s own territory.[336] Food was
probably traded according to need. It was also traded on the basis
of geographical location, coastal tribes exchanging with interior
tribes.[337]

The arrival of Europeans in the New World provided a great trade
stimulus. The major trading interest between Indians and Europeans
was the fur trade. Here coastal dwelling Indian groups such as the
Wampanoags took the advantage. Being first to meet the Europeans,
they quickly established themselves as go-betweens in the trade,
and besides doing trapping of their own, they traded for the furs
of inland tribes, which they then traded to the Europeans for a
profit.[338] The fur trade caused increased emphasis upon hunting
and trapping. Since it was more profitable to trade skins than to
wear them, the fur trade was a force that encouraged Indians to adopt
European textiles and dress.

The fur trade also was responsible for the introduction of wampum
into Wampanoag culture. Wampum, used as money, was a trait
belonging to Indian groups to the south. Purple wampum may have
first originated on Long Island.[339] When the Dutch settled New
Netherland, they found it a convenient medium of exchange and adopted
it. The regular use and production of wampum found its way north to
the Narragansetts, but it did not become popular with the Wampanoags
until after 1627, the year in which the Dutch first brought wampum
to Plymouth and suggested its virtues to the English settlers
there.[340] Once its value was appreciated, Indians of the Plymouth
area began to make it also.[341] Within the next twenty years, wampum
as ornament and money became ingrained in Wampanoag culture.

Purple wampum was double the value of white. Wampum was reckoned in
value by count, 360 white beads equalling a fathom, which was worth
five shillings. This number of beads might exceed or fall short of
a fathom in linear measure, but the number of beads rather than
actual length was the important criterion.[342] The value of wampum,
however, was based on the market in furs.[343] After 1648 this market
dropped, and after that date a 5-shilling “fathom” of wampum had to
consist of 480 white beads. In the period immediately prior to King
Philip’s War the use of wampum as currency declined.[344]

Not all trade was in terms of skins and wampum. These were basic but
not the exclusive goods in circulation. Guns and alcohol were popular
items, introduced onto the market chiefly by the French—much to the
distress of the English colonists and missionaries. Corn was also
much involved in New England commerce.[345] Settlers traded corn with
the Indians, according to the needs of each in a particular year.
The Pilgrims at Plymouth traded corn to Indians in Maine for furs,
although this pattern came to be replaced by an exchange of furs for
wampum.[346]




LABOR


The basic division of labor was between the sexes. Certain tasks were
those of women; certain others were those of men—neither did the work
of the other. Apparently there were also individual craft specialty
avocations, in terms of tribe or local group. That is, besides
doing all the tasks that were necessary every day to produce food,
clothing, and shelter, some people also made bowls, pottery, pipes,
etc. It is not known, however, which people (i.e. a few individuals
or almost everyone) within the group made these things.

The tasks of women centered about the home and fields. Theirs was
the job of building the house. They set up the poles, made the mats
to cover them, and fastened on the covering. When the family moved
they took down the mats and carried them on their backs to the next
homesite, where they were put onto the family dwelling in that
place.[347] The woman did all the tending of the crops—she planted
them, weeded them, saw that they were guarded from birds, harvested
them, processed them, and stored them. She also made the various
containers in which they were stored. Whichever of these products
were to be carried to their next camping spot she also carried.[348]

The various collecting activities were the woman’s job—gathering
shellfish for food and to bait her husband’s line, collecting roots,
berries, and seeds, and also gathering the various raw materials
needed for making bags and baskets.[349] When fish or game was
captured by the man of the house he left the kill where it had
fallen and sent his wife to fetch it in. Having collected the game,
the woman skinned it, prepared the meat and dressed the hide, which
she might then make into clothing or some household article.[350]
Besides these things women had the job of motherhood. Along with
the household goods, the baby rode on his mother’s back when the
family moved.[351] Women were valued as highly productive members of
the community. Bride-price is one institution that emphasizes their
importance. The more women there were in a group, the more prosperous
it was considered to be. In war, female captives were prized. A wife
who wanted to leave her husband could run away to the enemy and be
welcomed.[352]

The business of men was to hunt for game, catch fish, and provide
protection for the weaker members of the village.[353] Raising
tobacco was an exclusive activity of men. Men made and maintained
their hunting and war weapons. They also manufactured many of the
household tools and utensils.[354] Woodworking in general was the
province of men: they carved spoons and dishes; they made canoes;
they cut and shaped the poles for houses; they cut down trees to make
new farm land; they constructed fortifications.[355]

Certain tasks were performed by groups of people from the larger
community. One of these was breaking ground for spring planting,
Williams writes that “All the neighbours men and Women forty, fifty,
a hundred &c., joyne, and come in to help freely”.[356] Hunting by
drive, fishing of some kinds, and the building of fortifications were
also communal projects, as was war.[357]

Children, as soon as they were old enough, imitated the tasks of the
similar-sexed parent. Toy bows and arrows and miniature pots were
among their playthings. Children were useful for help in the fields
at such tasks as weeding and keeping away birds. Men who were too old
to hunt might also assist in the agricultural activities, if they
wanted to.[358] Older women whose families were grown no doubt helped
take care of toddlers so that mothers could do things outside the
house such as gardening.




TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT


The Wampanoag had two means of travel available to him—going on foot
or by canoe. Likewise, for the transport of his belongings and any
trade goods he could use his canoe or his back.

Travel on foot through the forests was difficult, owing to the
dense growth of bushes and low trees. There were paths worn along
regular routes, but hunters had to traverse the woods. Early
observers reported that in order to ease movement through the woods
the Indians periodically set fire to the woods and burned out the
undergrowth.[359]

The Wampanoags were efficient about the business of foot travel.
They knew the country well and crossed seemingly trackless woods
with accuracy of direction.[360] They trained at running from early
childhood and a man could travel along all day at a jog-trot with
ease.[361] The traveling costume was designed for a minimum of
encumbrance on the journey—the normal dress being the breech clout.
The traveler carried a bag of parched corn meal for sustenance and
a pouch of tobacco, along with flints and pipe. He either wore
or carried his moccasins. A quiver of arrows hung over his left
shoulder, with the end resting in his right hand. In the left hand
the runner carried his bow.[362] A small quantity of corn sustained
him during the day, and by night he would seek shelter among friends
of another village, or if alone he would kindle his own fire and dine
on corn meal and water.

For water travel, either the birch bark or the dugout canoe was used.
The bark canoe was probably preferred for travel on inland waterways,
since portages could be made with greater ease, owing its lesser
weight.[363] Birch bark canoes were said to be difficult to keep
from capsizing. The Wampanoags, however, were skilled in the use of
these bark boats, and they are described as venturing out in rough
coastal waters.[364] They were strong swimmers and quite prepared to
rescue themselves in case of mishap. The canoeist knew how to right
his craft while swimming alongside and scramble in again.[365] Canoes
were usually propelled by paddles.[366] However, the occasional use
of sails is noted. A pole served for the mast and a skin robe or two
for canvas.[367]




RECREATION


Recreation took two basic forms: sporting contests and gambling. Both
were spectator sports as well as activities for the participants.
The only team sport was a game that the English observers dubbed
“football”. The ball was about the size of a handball. The game was
played on long sandy beaches, the goal posts set a mile apart. If the
rules followed the same form as those in other areas of North America
where the game was played, the object was to get the ball over the
goal without using one’s hands. The game might go on for two days
before one goal was made, in which case the spot of play was marked
at the end of the day and the game resumed there on the following
day. When one tribe played against another the goal posts were hung
with a great deal of wealth in wampum and other goods to go to the
team that won. Players left their weapons in a common heap before
play began and painted their faces as for war.[368] Before the game,
men from the opposing teams met and shook hands. If the Wampanoag
version of “football” was comparable to that in other places where
the game was played, it was rough, and broken bones were not
uncommon. In the course of a game players wrestled for possession of
the ball and might be dunked in the ocean. Despite the vigorous play,
however, tempers were seldom lost, and quarrels were rare. Great
multitudes of people gathered for these games; women and children
provided a noisy audience, calling out praises to their favorite
players. When the play had ended, all joined for a great feast.[369]

Other sporting contests matched individual skills in archery,
swimming, and running. Again, the contestants might be members
of opposing tribes and the match one of great public interest.
Marksmanship with bow and arrow was keen. The bowman held the arrow
between his thumb and forefinger. In one form of shooting match the
archer shot at his opponent, who would try, usually with success, to
dodge the arrows. This was considered good practice for war.

European observers remarked that the Indians were excellent swimmers.
Their style was designed for endurance, approximating what we would
call a side stroke.[370] Children learned to swim while very young.
Like swimming, running was a matter of balancing endurance against
speed; the runner had to be able to keep jogging along easily for a
day or more.[371]

Gambling was less active but no less competitive. Two types of
gambling games were played. One, called _Puim_, was played with 50
or 60 reeds, each about a foot long. These were shuffled and dealt
out to the players in such a way that different numbers fell to each;
whoever had the most was counted ahead. A man that was a skillful
player at this game wore some of the reeds through his ear as a
challenge to anyone who might like to try to beat him.[372]

The other game was called _Hubbub_. It involved placing five bone
dice, painted black on one side and white on the other, in a wooden
platter, hitting the platter hard on the ground to make the dice
jump up, and betting on the outcome of the color combination.[373]
When this game was a contest between communities, a special arbor
was built for the players who represented each group. Four poles of
16 to 20 feet high were set into the ground in a square to make this
structure, and it was draped with the large quantity of wampum that
was bet on the game. Hundreds of spectators would be present at an
inter-tribal contest, described as having been a solemn affair. The
spectators would chant “Hub Hub Hub” as the dice were being thrown,
and the noise carried for a quarter of a mile.[374]

Not all gambling was a great public spectacle. It was a common
activity of men at all times. It was pursued with great diligence
and for high stakes; a group of men might sit for twenty-four
hours without interruption for sleep, drink or food, until
all had systematically gambled away the totality of their
possessions—including even their moccasins.[375]

Gamblers invoked supernatural good will, sometimes by carrying a rock
crystal charm. These were thought to be pieces of thunderbolts.[376]
Gambling was usually a serious undertaking. In most cases players
parted company in peace, however occasional disputes arose which led
to violence and might ultimately result in killings.[377]




ENTERTAINMENT


Occasions for entertainment were usually activities aimed at purposes
other than mere diversion. Songs, dances, and even public games
had a ceremonial cast to them. A close tie-in with magic and the
manipulation or propitiation of the supernatural is suggested in most
cases.[378]

At various times of the year great public gatherings were held, in
which the members of several local groups met for feasting, dancing,
and playing games. At least two such public gatherings were held each
year. One was in the spring, when large numbers of people had already
congregated at certain fishing places.[379]

The other time of general public congregation was in the fall at
harvest time. A dance house was built for the occasion. Dances were
held at night, sometimes continuing for a week with the participants
sleeping during the daytime. Both men and women gathered as
spectators in the dance house; they sang accompaniment while the
dancers performed one at a time. As he danced, the dancer would hand
out money, knives, clothing, and the like to the needier members of
the audience. When one dancer had given all he had, another would
follow him, and so on.

Besides the great public gatherings, there were smaller private
gatherings for various purposes.[380] One sort, to be discussed
later, was to call for supernatural aid. Another was the Nikomo
feast, held in the winter by members of a family for a select group
of guests.[381] The host would give away as much of his wealth as he
could to those who attended the feasting and dancing.[382]

Another favorite type of entertainment was story-telling and oratory.
People listened with rapt attention to news and speeches. The
discourse of one man might go on for an hour or two, while a large
audience listened and smoked in silence; the manner of presentation
was dramatic and accompanied by a great deal of gesture.[383]

The music which accompanied dances was provided mainly by
singing.[384] Sometimes dances were accompanied by beating on the
ground with sticks or hands along with muttering, humming and
singing, but aside from these there were no musical instruments among
the Wampanoags.[385]

The dances themselves are described as being “vehement in their
motion”. At some dances a single dancer would perform; at others
a few men and women would dance together.[386] Larger numbers of
performers participated simultaneously in war dances.




PROPERTY


Adapted as they were to a mobile existence, the Wampanoags did not
own large numbers of personal possessions judged by our standards. A
typical list of an individual’s possessions would probably include
his clothing, whatever tools he used from day to day, and his
“wealth” in the form of wampum, skins, and the like. Even adding
in such personal possessions as pipes and jewelry, the amount of
property in this class would not have been large. At least some of
this property was buried with its owner at his death.[387]

Land and the right to use it was apparently owned by the sachem.
The boundaries of territory owned by a particular sachem were well
defined, and from this land he allotted certain parts of it to his
followers for their use. Not much is known, however, of the basis of
land allotment.[388]

The sachem retained certain rights over the land used by his
followers. When a deer was shot in his territory he was due the
forequarters. He was also to be given the skins of deer taken in
water that was in his territory. An annual tribute of food was given
him by all the people, in return for, among other things, the use of
his property.[389]




TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION


In regard to the subdivision of Wampanoag territory, Vaughan offers
the following statement:

  Anthropologists recognize nine subdivisions on the mainland, an
  additional four on Martha’s Vineyard, and several others scattered
  throughout the offshore islands and coastal promontories. The
  mainland sub-tribes were generally quite cohesive, largely because
  of the strong leadership offered by Massasoit and his immediate
  heirs. The leading Wampanoag sachems kept their principal
  headquarters at Pokanoket (now Bristol Rhode Island)....[390]

The actual organization of the territory into political units
is difficult to discover from information recorded during the
seventeenth century. Ideally, there would have been a sachem over
each of the Wampanoag subdivisions and under him various sub-sachems
who exercised some authority over more localized areas.[391]
Probably, as the passage by Vaughan suggests, true organization on a
“tribal” basis was an ephemeral thing.[392]

When a leader arose who could attract and hold the loyalty of the
various subdivisions of the Wampanoags, then he came to exercise some
authority beyond whatever tract of land would have been considered
his “territory”—that is, the land which he had the right to allot.
Massasoit was such a leader. He controlled a certain territory but
also commanded the support of other sachems and received gifts from
them as tokens of their loyalty.[393] The absolute authority of a
tribal leader like Massasoit was solid only as long as he could
keep his followers in agreement with him, and dissension was not
unexpected.[394] Upon the death of a sachem, there was probably
considerable shuffling and re-shuffling of territorial affiliation.




GOVERNMENT


The chief Wampanoag official was known as the sachem. The same
official was also sometimes called sagamore. The office was
hereditary through the male line—that is, a man’s son would normally
succeed him upon his death or retirement. There were some variations
upon this arrangement, and occasionally wives, daughters, and nephews
succeeded to the position of leadership. If the heir was too young to
undertake the responsibility of leadership, the position was usually
held for him until he was of age. The arrangements of regency in this
event are not known. Usurpation of the sachemship did occur, and if
the man who took the position away from the rightful heir could find
support and proved a good leader, he could retain the position.[395]

The sachem oversaw the allotment of lands and collected tribute from
his followers. This tribute was the source of his wealth. The more
followers the sachem could hold, the greater his wealth, therefore
people seeing his vast wealth would know he was a powerful sachem. He
took pains to please his followers, since those who did not like his
policies could leave and join with another sachem.[396] He provided
for the poor of his domain and gave presents to his followers.[397]
Probably some of the feasts recounted by European observers were
given by sachems to express gratitude to loyal followers.

Several special practices were associated with the sachemship.
The sachem might have several wives. The first wife (who was the
“official wife”) had to be of chiefly descent. The sachem lived in
a house that was more elegant than those of his subjects.[398] When
strangers came to the territory they were lodged at the sachem’s
residence. This allowed the sachem to display his hospitality and
also gave him the opportunity to enquire into their business.[399]

A sachem made an annual tour of inspection of his lands, visiting and
talking with people and generally evaluating the situation of his
territory.[400] A formal tribute of corn was collected once a year,
overseen by officials who were designated as _pnieses_. The corn was
brought to a place near the residence of the sachem, and the pnieses
officially informed him of the gift. He would then express gratitude
verbally and by giving gifts to his people.[401]

The sachem alone did not decide upon the policy of the group. There
were other individuals who had a voice of authority in important
matters.[402] The pnieses functioned as a tribal council, without
whose approval the sachem could not act in some cases.[403] In
addition they were also war leaders and a personal bodyguard for the
sachem when he went abroad. Old men were respected for their advice
(which they frequently dispensed in long formal orations) and were
consulted in decisions.[404] Likewise, a powow whose powers were
respected and feared would have an influence upon the governmental
sphere of tribal activities.[405]

The governmental structure also included “sub-sachems” with more
local authority.[406] Their role was mainly one of attending to the
needs of their own groups. Among their functions were the settling of
quarrels and acting as general intermediaries between the local group
and higher authority.[407]




LAW AND JUSTICE


Among the Wampanoags, and likewise with other primitive societies
who lack full-time legal and judicial specialists, the business
of punishing wrongdoers and settling disputes was often a matter
of selecting the most expedient course of action in the current
situation.[408] For certain sorts of cases, however, there were
well-established patterns observed and recorded by the seventeenth
century chroniclers.

The chief judiciary was the sachem. He also functioned as the jury,
sometimes with the additional counsel of other wise men, and in most
cases he carried out whatever punishment was decreed.[409] Regularly
recognized crimes were robbery, adultery, murder, and treason. For
theft, the first offense resulted in a degrading public rebuke. If
the offender stole a second time, he was beaten by the sachem “with
a cudgel on the naked back”. The third offense resulted in a more
severe beating, and he “... hath his nose slit upwards, that thereby
all men may both know and shun him”.[410]

Adultery was punished by the wronged party, who would beat the
offender, sometimes to death—in which case his death could not be
revenged. The adulterous wife was kept or sent away at the husband’s
wish. If the husband was the offender, his wife might leave him, but
there is no other form of punishment recorded.[411]

Death was the punishment for murder. The regular procedure was to
bring the offender before the sachem, who would pass judgement.
The condemned man was then blindfolded, compelled to kneel and was
bludgeoned to death by the sachem. Revenge was eagerly sought by the
kinsmen of a murdered man.[412] They might take matters into their
own hands and seek out the offending party, especially if the formal
channels of justice did not first offer them satisfaction.[413]
This was more likely to happen when the suspect belonged to another
tribe.[414] If he were a valuable man, his sachem might be reluctant
to execute him.[415] In lieu of the actual offender, one of his
close relatives might be executed for the offense.[416] It was also
possible to escape retribution by purchasing forgiveness of the
offended group of kinsmen if enough wampum or other goods could be
given.[417]

Treason also was usually punished by death.[418] When the offender
fled before his treachery was discovered, the sachem sent special
messengers with his own knife to find and execute the guilty party.
The head and hands were brought back to the sachem as proof of a
mission accomplished.[419] This procedure was also used to dispatch
suspected leaders of intrigues against the sachem when it was feared
that a public execution might throw sentiment to the side of the
traitor’s faction.[420]

Etiquette required that all punishments, whether beatings or death,
were to be borne with a show of outward calm. If one were to cry out,
show pain, or try to escape, it was considered to be an unspeakable
disgrace.[421]

Serious disputes that could not otherwise be worked out might be
settled by combat between the two parties involved. In this case,
each man was armed with his bow and a quiver of arrows. They would
cast lots for a choice of the tree to use as a shield. From behind
their respective trees they would shoot at each other until one or
the other was killed. The scars of wounds received in this kind of
combat were displayed with a great deal of pride.[422]

Inter-tribal justice, as the preceding suggests, was of a dubious
nature. If one tribe were wronged by a member of another, emissaries
were sent to ask for compensation. Whether or not it was given was a
matter up to the tribe of the offender. Satisfaction might involve
taking the offender’s life or the payment of a fine to compensate for
loss through theft or killing. If satisfactory reparations were not
made the offended party usually tried to forcibly take the equivalent
in lives or goods to what had been lost.[423]




SOCIAL PROBLEMS


Wampanoag society also had its problems of insanity, widows, orphans,
old people, and poverty. Friends or relatives usually provided for
those in need of care. If they could not, however, it was up to the
sachem to see that the needy were sustained; it is said that no one
in the tribe went unprovided for.[424]




SOCIAL STRATIFICATION


There were three basic divisions within Wampanoag society: (1) the
sachem and members of the “royal family”; (2) ordinary members of
the community; (3) resident non-members (generally captives of war)
who acted as servants.[425] However, within these categories there
was considerable difference in the wealth and importance of members.
There were also statuses within the groupings that carried special
implications, such as warrior, powow, wife of sachem, older man, etc.

There were certain visible signs of social standing in Wampanoag
society. The person of wealth or noble birth wore zoomorphic
tattoos on his face.[426] His house had mats of an especially fine
quality.[427] He wore a lot of wampum and had it woven into caps
and aprons to show his lack of immediate need for this money.[428]
He could have more than one wife.[429] He might have servants
to do household tasks, and his wife could have a nurse for the
children.[430]




INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS


English observers of the Wampanoags were impressed with the
hospitality the Indians showed toward one another.[431] Any visitor
was provided with a share of whatever food the household had, even
if provisions were low.[432] Regardless of when a guest arrived, the
courteous thing to do was to first offer him food.[433] The guest
was provided with a place to sleep—usually in the family bed. In the
summer the visitor might be provided with a space by having a member
of the household sleep outside.[434]

Hospitality can be linked to a basic cultural pattern of value placed
on, and presumably prestige afforded by, generosity. The practice of
giving away goods in a public display of generosity was previously
discussed. By the same token, ingratitude was accounted the worst
breech of manners. Not only did the donor thus lose his goods, but
also the prestige of being acclaimed a generous man if his sacrifice
was not noted by the proper thanks.[435]

The Wampanoags’ hospitable attitude also extended to the English, who
were fed, sheltered, guided through the woods, and advised of the
movements of strangers.[436] It would have been a great discourtesy
for the English guests to have refused to join their Wampanoag host
for a meal, even though they found some of the food un-palatable.[437]

Certain matters of protocol seem to have been highly formalized. A
greeting gesture was to stick the tongue out as far as it would go
and lick the hand from wrist to finger tips.[438]

When a visitor came calling to discuss a serious matter, the occasion
began with solemn formality. He entered the house and sat silently
by the fire. Remaining silent, he smoked a pipe of tobacco. Having
finished his pipe the visitor presented his host with a gift. The
host gratefully acknowledged the gift, and then the visitor explained
his business in the course of a long speech.[439]




MARRIAGE AND FAMILY


When a man wished to marry he spoke first to the woman and then
to her family. Permission of the sachem was also necessary.[440]
The bride’s parents were paid a sum of wampum or other goods to
compensate for the loss of their daughter, and the union was
solemnized by the sachem.[441] A man might get help from his
relatives to pay the bride-price.[442]

If a woman felt that she was being ill-treated or became displeased
with her husband for some other reason she would leave him.[443]
One way was to run away and join whatever tribe her husband’s group
happened to be warring with at the time.[444] When a man wished to
be rid of his wife, he sent her away from him. Adultery was one
reason for divorcing a wife.[445] A woman with the reputation of an
adulteress might not be able to find another man who would marry her;
such women sometimes became prostitutes.[446]

Wampanoags were polygynous. When a man took additional wives, one,
usually the first, remained as the chief or principal wife with some
degree of authority over the other wives.[447] In actual practice,
not many men had more than one wife at a time. Sachems, powerful
powows, and men of rank and wealth might have additional wives;
apparently not all of these chose to do so.[448]

There were two reasons given for having multiple wives. First, an
additional worker made a more productive household.[449] Second, a
man might take an additional wife after the birth of a child; sexual
relations between husband and wife were prohibited until the infant
was weaned, which might be a period of more than a year.[450]

It was not common for anyone to live alone. Single persons lived with
their families, and widows, widowers, or divorced persons usually
also lived with relatives until another marriage was made.[451]




REPRODUCTION


Expectant mothers did not vary their normal routine of heavy work.
Observers of the period noted this practice and attributed to it the
ease with which women were able to deliver children. In the case of a
difficult birth, the services of the powow’s magic were sought.[452]




INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD


The few observations that were recorded suggest that the Wampanoags
had a high birth rate and rather high infant mortality.[453] The high
number of infant deaths may have been due in part to the fact that
within three days after its birth the baby was being carried about on
the mother’s back in all the tasks that she went about outside.[454]
Moreover, the Wampanoag style of cradle board made no provision for a
device to shield the infant’s face.[455]

A baby’s clothing consisted of a coating of grease and a beaver skin
or other fur wrapping in which he was bound onto the cradle board.
The child was tied so that his knees were drawn up against his
stomach, then when the board was set down and leaned somewhere he
would be in a sitting position.[456]

Babies were soothed by the lullabies of their mothers.[457] It is
said that they were generally very quiet infants and cried little.
The Wampanoags were extremely fond of their children, giving them a
great deal of indulgence and affection.[458] Infants were not weaned
until they were over a year old.[459] Such child-rearing practices
resulted in children that were “sawcie, bold, and undutifull”,
according to English eyes.[460]




EDUCATION


Education was probably for the most part informal. Children learned
their adult roles by watching adult activities and by being
encouraged in their attempts to copy. Such practical skills for
survival as swimming were taught at an early age.[461] Little boys
played at shooting toy bows and arrows.[462] Girls played with
miniature cooking pots, and they also participated in the work of
planting and tending the fields as soon as they were old enough.[463]

An education in the beliefs and values of the Wampanoag people was
gained in part by listening to the stories told by parents and
grandparents.[464]




INITIATION


The transition of young Wampanoags into adult status was marked
by special observances. Boys and girls both underwent initiation
ceremonies; there is almost no information of the nature of these
observances for females.[465] For boys it was a lengthy process to
finally achieve recognition as an adult member of the tribe. De
Rasieres describes some of the aspects of Wampanoag initiation.

  When there is a youth who begins to approach manhood, he is
  taken by his father, uncle or nearest friend, and is conducted
  blindfolded into a wilderness, in order that he may not know the
  way, and is left there by night or otherwise, with a bow and
  arrows, and a hatchet and a knife. He must support himself there a
  whole winter with what the scanty earth furnishes at this season,
  and by hunting. Towards the spring they come again, and fetch him
  out of it, take him home and feed him up again until May. He must
  then go out again every morning with the person who is ordered to
  take him in hand; he must go into the forest to seek wild herbs and
  roots, which they know to be the most poisonous and bitter; these
  they bruise in water and press the juice out of them, which he must
  drink, and immediately have ready such herbs as will preserve him
  from death or vomiting; and if he cannot retain it, he must repeat
  the dose until he can support it and until his constitution becomes
  accustomed to it so that he can retain it.

  Then he comes home, and is brought by the men and women all singing
  and dancing, before the Sackima; and if he has been able to stand
  it all well, and if he is fat and sleek, a wife is given to
  him.[466]

Both boys and girls received new, adult names at the time of their
initiation.[467]




MILITARY TECHNOLOGY


=Military Organization=: Although it is not known for certain, it
seems likely that the groups of men called _pnieses_ constituted
an elite military society that provided leadership in battles
as well as being a policy-making body. Boys with the proper
characteristics—courage, strength, stature, endurance, honesty,
discretion, and courtesy—were trained from childhood to endure
hardships in preparation for becoming a pniese. When they were of the
proper age they were initiated into the society in a ceremony which
involved physical ordeal and supernatural experience.[468] Pnieses
performed feats of great courage and boldness and were considered
to be immune to wounds by enemy weapons. These were the leaders in
battle—the men who carried long spears.[469]

=Defensive Fortifications=: Winter villages were often fortified
against attack. Fortifications were pallisade and ditch
constructions. A pallisade consisted of upright poles of some ten
to twelve feet high, set into the ground as close as possible. On
the inside a breast-high ditch was dug, and dirt thrown up against
the base of the uprights provided further protection during combat.
Spaces between the poles served as loopholes. The fort had one or
two entrances, depending on its circumference. These were formed by
overlapping the ends of the wall.[470]

Forts varied considerably in size, and probably there was also
variation from the above structural specifications. Sizes ranged from
enclosures of about fifty feet across to areas of several acres.[471]
The smaller fortified areas were probably meant for the use of small
groups when away from the main community, perhaps during the hunting
season. Thick woods and swamps also served as refuge areas for women
and children in wartime.[472]

=Ordnance=: Weapons consisted of bows and arrows, clubs, and
tomahawks. Knives were used for taking trophies. War leaders carried
long spears. When guns, swords and other European war machines had
been introduced into North America, these also were used. Wampanoag
fortifications were not so effective against the guns as they had
been against bows and arrows.[473]

=Uniform and Accoutrement=: The uniform of the Wampanoag was his war
paint, described in the following passage: “When they goe to their
warres, it is their custome to paint their faces with diversitie of
Colours, some being all black as jet, some red, some halfe red and
halfe blacke, some blacke and white, others spotted with divers kinds
of colours....”[474] In addition, wampum and other ornaments were
worn into battle.[475]




WAR


Motivations which could lead to war were revenge, boundary disputes,
and power struggles within groups.[476] The instigation for war might
come from the sachem or from some group among the people; generally
the agreement of the sachem and his council was required before war
could be undertaken.

Dancing and oratory were part of the preparations for battle,
serving to incite the warriors. The following passage describes the
pre-battle ritual:

  There was one that kneeled upon a deer skin, with the company
  around him in a ring, who kneeled, striking upon the ground with
  their hands and with sticks, and muttering or humming with their
  mouths. Besides him who kneeled in the ring there also stood one
  with a gun in his hand. Then he on the deerskin made a speech,
  and all manifested assent to it; and so they did many times
  together. Then they bid him with a gun go out of the ring, which
  he did; but when he was out, they called again; but he seemed to
  make a stand. Then they called the more earnestly, till he turned
  again. Then they all sang. Then they gave him two guns in each
  hand one. And so he on the deerskin began again; and at the end
  of every sentence in his speaking they all assented, and humming
  or muttering with their mouths and striking upon the ground with
  their hands. Then they bid him with the two guns go out of the
  ring again, but he made a stand. So they called him with greater
  earnestness; but he stood reeling and wavering as if he knew not
  whether he should stand or fall, or which way to go. Then they
  called him with exceeding great vehemency, all of them, one and
  another. After a little while he turned in, staggering as he went,
  with his arms stretched out, in each hand a gun. As soon as he
  came in, they all sang and rejoiced exceedingly a while, and then
  he upon the deerskin made another speech, unto which they all
  assented in a rejoicing manner....[477]

The Wampanoags were skillful both in the use of their weapons and in
avoiding enemy fire. In the woods, where most fighting seems to have
been done, warriors used trees for cover. In the open, bark shields
were used to ward off arrows, and the fighters were skillful at
dodging out of the way.[478] As a rule, when a warrior had run out of
arrows he left the battle.[479] As a result, mortality was not high,
judged by the standards of European wars of the period. In a large
battle, however, as many as twenty men might be lost.[480]

The tactic of surprise was used whenever possible. The occasion of a
storm that would drive the enemy indoors was a good opportunity for
attack; warriors could enter the village unnoticed and strike down
the foe in their houses before they could organize for defense.[481]

Sometimes battles took place on the water. One reporter describes
seeing thirty or forty canoes full of men engaged in a pitched
battle.[482]

Warriors who were killed, or wounded so they could not escape,
had their heads, hands, and feet hacked off and carried away as
trophies.[483] Scalping was a practice that appeared late in the
seventeenth century; it may have been a European introduction.[484]
Most male captives faced a death by torture. Female captives were
kept alive; it is likely that they were adopted into the tribe as
wives or servants.[485]




IDEAS ABOUT NATURE AND MAN


From childhood the Wampanoags learned to make certain observations of
the stars, planets, and of the seasons and weather.[486] The time of
day was measured by the height of the sun in the day and by the moon
and stars at night.[487] Longer spans of time were kept account of
in terms of the moon and of “summers” and “winters”.[488] Reckoning
according to the moon, they had thirteen months, each with its own
name.[489] Many of the stars were named; the north star was called
_Maske_, meaning “bear”.[490] Winds were named according to their
direction; of these there were seven to nine.[491] By observing
the winds and the sky the Wampanoags made fairly accurate weather
predictions.[492]




SICKNESS


The Wampanoag practice of sweat bathing was thought to have both
therapeutic and preventive benefits. First the sweat house was heated
by putting a great number of hot stones inside. Then the naked
bathers entered and the door was stopped up. The bathers sat inside,
smoking their pipes for as long as they could bear the heat—perhaps
an hour or so. The sweat bath was then terminated by a dash outside
and a plunge into the cold water of a nearby lake or stream. Sweat
bathing was said to cleanse and refresh the body and thus be good
for general health. It was also used to cure diseases, sometimes in
combination with other types of remedies.[493]

Herbal remedies were used for their therapeutic effect on both
diseases and wounds.[494] The Wampanoags are said to have had
great skill in the use of such remedies.[495] The Wampanoag theory
of herbal remedies was that each symptom had a specific herbal
cure.[496] For example, the cure for toothache was “... a certaine
root dried, not much unlike our ginger”.[497] A different herb would
be used to relieve stomach aches, and so on.

Wounds and diseases were also cured by magical means. Curing by magic
seems to have been used in cases where the suspected cause of the
illness was also magical. This malevolent magic was usually manifest
in the form of an “evil spirit” put into the ailing person’s body
to cause him pain. Healing by magic was the special province of the
_powow_.[498]

When a person was quite ill, all his friends and relatives would
crowd into his wigwam and gather around him. If someone could not be
there in person, he sent a representative.[499] This audience joined
in the powow’s chanting at certain points during the ritual.[500]
Wood gives the following description of magical curing procedure:

  ... after violent expressions of many a hideous bellowing and
  growning, he makes a stop, and then all the auditors with one voice
  utter a short Canto; which done, the Pow-wow still proceeds in his
  invocations sometimes roaring like a Beare, other times groaning
  like a dying horse, foaming at the mouth like a chased boar,
  smiting on his naked brest and thighs with such violence, as if he
  were madde. Thus will hee continue sometimes halfe a day, spending
  his lungs, sweating out his fat, and tormenting his body in this
  diabolicall worship....[501]

Next the powow would suck on the afflicted part of the patient’s
body and, being an expert at sleight of hand, pretend to remove an
object—a small stone, or twig or the like—from the body and display
it for all to see. This object, it was claimed, was the “evil spirit”
that was the cause of the trouble. Sometimes it was thought that the
powow from some other group had brought on the illness in the first
place.[502]

Both men and women engaged in curing activities.[503] It may have
been that there was a division between the use of herbal and magical
cures, with magically caused illness and magical cures being the
province of male powows, and functional illness being cured by
specific herbal formulas which were non-magical in their effect and
which were the province of women skilled in this art. This was true
of some other Northeastern Algonquian groups. Where such a division
occurred, there was little or no infringement of one group on the
methods that were the property of the other. When symptoms did not
respond to the normal herbal treatment, or when they were recognized
to be supernatural in origin from the start, magical cures were
resorted to.[504] Curers were paid well for their efforts, and those
who were successful became wealthy and influential members of the
community.[505]

If a patient recovered, his friends and relatives would send corn and
other sorts of gifts to him, and at a certain time a feast (called
_commoco_) would be held in honor of the recovery.[506] Sometimes
in asking the supernatural to remove a sickness it was necessary to
provide gifts as a sacrifice.[507] This seems to have been a practice
resorted to in particularly grave situations. In one instance, when
several people had died in an epidemic, the entire village gathered
to perform a curing ritual to drive out the sickness. The wealthier
people danced and gave away great quantities of wealth to the poor;
ultimately a messenger was sent to intercede in person with the
supernatural.[508] Epidemics were greatly feared, and in the case
of a known contagious disease, the usual practice of friends and
relatives coming to visit the sick was not carried out. In such
instances often the entire village would be abandoned.[509]




DEATH


Death and the dead were greatly feared by the Wampanoags.[510]
Theories as to the causes of death are little noted by the European
chroniclers; there was, however, the idea that the death of a child
could result from supernatural anger with the parent.[511] After
death the “good” were thought to go to the southwest, where they
would lead an idyllic existence. Less fortunate people were doomed to
wandering about aimlessly.[512]

Burial prepared the deceased for his journey to the southwest.
Hazards were expected along the way (a large dog is one that is
mentioned.)[513] For this reason, and because the afterlife was
expected to be like earthly existence, the equipment of life—weapons,
wampum, ornaments, pots, and the like were buried along with the
dead.[514] In the case of children, the parents might make gifts of
special ornaments and treasures and put them into the grave.[515]

One specially appointed person, “commonly some wise, grave, and
well-descented man” had the job of preparing the corpse for burial
and committing it to the earth.[516] Woven mats were used to line
the grave. Boards might be placed in as lining for the grave of
an important person, likewise a greater wealth of possessions and
richer covering of mats indicated a person of higher station.[517]
The body was placed into the grave in a sitting position—arms were
drawn across the chest and knees were bent up; it was covered with
a mat.[518] To mark an important grave a skin mantle might be hung
nearby and left there until it rotted.[519] It was also reported that
monuments were raised over the graves of great men, but there is no
indication of what these might have been.[520]

There was considerable mourning and display of grief for the dead.
Both men and women painted their faces black to signify grief.[521]
Women would paint their faces as soon as an illness appeared to be
serious, but men did not do so until death had occurred.[522] At the
moment of death the assembled spectators would begin wailing and
lamenting, men and women alike.[523]

Adults were buried in or near the house, after which all the mats
were taken down from the house, leaving only the frame remaining, and
it was abandoned forever.[524] The company of friends and relatives
would gather around the corpse as it lay at the grave’s edge and
lament copiously.[525] They would continue to mourn thus for many
days; the length of mourning increased with the importance of the
deceased. In the case of a very important person, such as a sachem,
the period of mourning might last for a year.[526] The black face
paint was worn throughout the period of mourning, and it was often
seen to be caked by tears.[527] Upon the death of a child, the
father might cut off his proud long hair and inflict wounds upon his
body.[528] The anniversary of the death was kept by a brief period of
renewed mourning, the face again being blackened.[529] The name of a
deceased person was not to be mentioned again. If anyone living had a
similar name, he would change it.[530]

Concern was also shown for the family of the deceased. Friends would
often visit offering words of consolation “... which they express
by stroking the cheeke and head of the father or mother, husband
or wife of the dead”.[531] Widows or widowers, left then without a
house, would take up residence with a related family or perhaps move
about among the homes of their relatives for a time, where they were
comforted.[532]




RELIGIOUS BELIEFS[A]


The world of the Wampanoags was well-populated with supernatural
beings and forces. Of these, one was a sort of generalized power,
called _Manitou_.[533] Many early observers of the Indians of
northeastern North America, where this concept is widespread,
developed the mistaken idea that “Manitou” referred to an
anthropomorphic supreme being. Actually, Manitou is a force rather
than a person. It could perhaps best be likened to that force
for good luck that many Europeans think can be found in horse
shoes, four-leaf clovers, etc. thus, when a Wampanoag performed
an exceptional feat he was said to have Manitou, or supernatural
power. Likewise, certain objects, animals, and physical features
on the landscape were thought to have Manitou in them, because
someone had had good luck right after seeing or touching them. This
could have happened so far in the past that it was remembered only
in mythology. Or, perhaps the whole incident was a vision in a
dream.[534]

A related concept is something that can be called animal
spirits.[535] These were supernaturals in animal form, who could
interfere in the lives and fates of human beings. Whether the power
of these animals was identical to Manitou is not known, and it is
quite possible that the relationship was not too clearly worked out
in the minds of the Indians either.

A great deal of emphasis was placed upon dreams.[536] A Wampanoag
who wanted supernatural help could seek a dream in which one of the
animal spirits would appear to him and agree to help him, often by
becoming his guardian spirit.[537] He would then call upon this
supernatural helper throughout his life for whatever aid its power
enabled it to give. Crows and rabbits in particular represented
animal spirits, and they were not supposed to be killed.[538]

Powows also had animal spirits that they obtained through dreams.
Either the animal itself or the kind of supernatural power that the
animal had (it is not possible to tell which from existing data) came
to dwell within the powow. He could then send this spirit out to do
his bidding.[539] Usually there were several such animal spirits
dwelling within one powow.[540]

Also part of the supernatural world were the ghosts of the dead. They
lingered near the camps of the living and caused trouble, often in
the form of illness.[541]

The Wampanoags also had anthropomorphic supernaturals. One of these
was Kiehtan, a high god who was responsible for the creation of the
world and all in it, and who could influence the prosperity of the
Wampanoags. He was called upon for plenty, victory, and general
favor in various undertakings. His home was in the southwest, the
place where spirits of the good went upon death.[542] According to
some accounts this was also the place where other kinds of spirits
lived.[543]

Another supernatural was Hobomock (Abamacho). The Europeans
immediately identified this being with the Devil, because he had an
association with snakes, seemed to be able to cause harm to people,
and was often feared. Actually, he seems to have been capable of
both help and harm; his role in the supernatural pantheon is not
at all clear. Hobomock would actually appear to the more important
Wampanoags, taking the form of an animal or bird, and most frequently
a snake. He was called upon in time of sickness to cure people. One
never dared to call upon Kiehtan in time of illness for fear it might
have been he in the first place who sent the sickness as punishment.
If the illness was sent by Kiehtan, however, Hobomock could not cure
it.[544]

Mythology had it that people were made by Kiehtan (Kautantowwit). He
first made a man and a woman out of stone, but, as he did not like
them, he broke them into many pieces and proceeded to make another
man and woman out of a tree. These he liked, and their progeny
populated the earth.[545] Corn and beans were brought by the crow,
who carried in one ear a kernel of corn and in the other a bean,
which he had gotten from the field belonging to Kiehtan.[546]

The Wampanoags attributed a great deal of what happened to them
in their daily lives to supernatural activity.[547] Sometimes it
was hard to determine at once whether a condition resulted from
“natural” or supernatural causes. A supernaturally caused illness,
for example, would often go unrecognized until conventional herbal
techniques proved of no avail in bringing relief. Bad luck and
accidents were usually blamed on the supernatural.[548] Winning
at games was considered to be done as a result of supernatural
aid, which was invoked throughout the period of play. Bargaining,
pleading, and threatening were all methods used to bring supernatural
favor upon one’s activities and to dispel any unfavorable
supernatural influences.




RELIGIOUS PRACTICES


In the event of war, drought, famine, and for some cases of sickness,
ceremonial activities which constituted requests for supernatural aid
were carried out.[549] To beg for rain, people from all localities of
the tribe would gather at some high place and perform supplications
until the drought was broken.[550] Other ceremonials were occasioned
by a spirit of thanksgiving for peace, health, plenty, and
prosperity.[551]

As nearly as can be told, ceremonial activity encompassing all of the
above circumstances involved dancing and sacrifice of personal wealth
to please the supernatural. The sacrifice of wealth might take either
the form of gifts to the poor or actual destruction of property by
casting it upon the fire.[552] This latter custom was carried out by
the Narragansetts, and the more a man brought to burn up, the more
he was esteemed. The Wampanoags said they did not cast goods into
the fire, but they acknowledged this to be a powerful practice and
attributed to it the Narragansetts’ salvation from the plague.[553]
The seeking of supernatural assistance was highly pragmatic; if one
supernatural source did not send the desired aid, another was tried
until the proper combination was discovered.[554]

The Wampanoags placed a great deal of importance upon dreams. A bad
dream was considered to be a threat from the supernatural, and a man
awakening from one would fall to offering prayers of supplication. If
the vision were especially ominous, a man might call in his friends
to keep watch with him. He would offer them food, but he himself kept
a fasting and wakeful watch for several days and nights.[555]

Among the Wampanoags, names had supernatural significance. “Obscure
and mean persons amongst them....” had no names.[556] Probably such
persons were resident non-members of the tribe and youngsters who had
not yet undergone initiation. Once received, a name was a closely
guarded piece of personal property. It was considered discourteous to
refer to or call a person by his true name. Instead, a circumlocution
or a substitute pronoun was used.[557]




ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION


The Wampanoags only religious practitioner was the powow.
His role was that of intermediary between the humans and the
supernatural.[558] When illness was thought to be of supernatural
origin he was called in to determine the kind of force at work and
to carry out the proper ceremonies to restore health.[559] For this
work he received payment in advance. Should the patient not recover,
his relatives were apt to be angry with the powow; they would
demand the return of the fee and perhaps his life if they felt that
deception had been involved.[560]

Certain of the powow’s activities were deliberately misleading. He
often used tricks to help demonstrate his command of supernatural
powers. A powow was said to be able to accomplish such feats as
making water burn, turning ashes into green leaves in the winter,
making ice appear upon water in the summer, or turning himself into a
“flaming man”. His skill at sleight of hand aided in the working of
some of these wonders.[561]

A man became a powow by having a dream in which he was promised the
type of supernatural power that would make him a powerful religious
practitioner.[562] The man announced this dream to others on the
following day, and in the course of a two-day celebration it was
proclaimed that he was a powow.[563] The success and competence of
the new powow would be judged by his future performance.




APPENDIX


Tools and Appliances

This section contains a list of some Wampanoag tools and appliances
described by early observers. Where processes of manufacture and
methods of use are known and have not been more appropriately
included in previous sections they will be found in the following
pages. Basketry, clothing, and ornaments are thoroughly described
elsewhere.

The descriptive notes are arranged in the following order: item,
followed by use (where known), followed by material (where known),
followed by any details of construction, etc., followed by references
as to location of the data in the literature.

  BOW: weapon and hunting: walnut or “wich hasell”; 5-6′ long,
  painted black and yellow; strung with twisted sinew thicker than
  European boxstrings of the time; effective range “six to seven
  score”. (Josselyn, p. 257; Bushnell, p. 675; Wood, pp. 97, 101;
  Howe, p. 71)

  ARROW: weapon, hunting, fishing; shaft of “young elderne”; 18″
  long; made with detachable tips, the point bound to a 6-8″ piece
  of wood, which is then inserted in a socket in the main shaft and
  held by binding; fletching of long, broad, black feathers of eagle,
  vulture, or kite, attached with glue and binding. (Wood, p. 100;
  Mourt’s Relation, p. 183; Howe, p. 71)

  ARROW POINTS: stone—quartz (generally white), slate (Chapin, p. 3);
  metal—copper, iron, brass; triangular or “hart shaped” (Brereton,
  p. 43-44; Williams, p. 137; Wood, p. 100; Willoughby, pp. 237-39),
  bone (Willoughby, pp. 237-39); end of tail of horseshoe crab.
  (Howe, p. 120)

  FISHING SPEAR: shaft wood; point stone (quartz—usually white—or
  slate) or metal—iron, copper, (Chapin, p. 3; Brereton, pp. 43-44;
  Williams, p. 137; Bushnell, p. 675)

  LONG SPEAR: carried into battle by a chief and used for carrying
  back the heads of slain enemies; metal blade attached for point.
  (Wood, p. 95; Gookin, p. 152, Lechford, p. 120)

  KNIFE: handle antler; blade stone (quartz, flint, or slate)
  or metal; hafted by insertion of the blade into sleeve cut in
  handle; handle might be decorated by incised lines; two holes
  drilled diagonally until they meet to form an opening provide for
  suspending cord. (Willoughby, p. 239-40, illustrated; Chapin, p. 30)

  HARPOON: used in fishing. (Wood, p. 100-101; Williams, p. 137)

  GAMING PIECES: playing _Puim_; small reeds of about a foot long; 50
  to 60 make up a set. (Wood, p. 83)

  GAMING PIECES: playing _Hubbub_; bone dice, painted black on one
  side, white on the other; sets of five. (Wood, p. 83)

  GAMBLING TRAY: used in hubbub; carved and polished wood. (Wood, pp.
  96-98)

  BOWL OR DISH: eating stews, etc.; wood burls, including elm and
  maple; well smoothed and polished, sometimes with handle carved to
  represent animal. (Willoughby, p. 258; Mourt’s Relation, p. 144;
  Morton, pp. 158-59; Bushnell, p. 675)

  PAIL: carrying water; birch bark; square, bail-type handle, two to
  three gallon capacity; made by “skillful folding” (probably sewn
  together). (Gookin, p. 151)

  HAND BASKET: use not stated; “made of crabshells wrought together”.
  (Mourt’s Relation, p. 144)

  CLAY POT: cooking; thin, about the same thickness as iron pots;
  sizes quart to gallon. (Morton, p. 158; Mourt’s Relation, p. 144;
  Wood, p. 75; Gookin p. 151)

  STONE BOWLS: soapstone; with or without ears or handles; known
  examples are rather rough of finish. (Chase, p. 900; Chapin, p. 15)

  KETTLE: cooking; iron, brass, copper. (Wood, p. 75; Gookin, p. 151)

  DRINKING CUPS: unworked shell (_Fulgur canaliculata_); copper,
  broad and shallow (“skull-shaped”). (Willoughby, pp. 237-39;
  Brereton, pp. 43-44)

  BOX: birch bark. (Bushnell, p. 675)

  HOE: cultivating and preparing gardens; wood and clamshell.
  (Williams, p. 176; Wood, p. 87; Howe, pp. 116-17)

  SPOON: eating stews, etc.; Wood (burls of elm, maple, or other),
  finely finished, handle often elaborately carved in openwork or
  other ornamental figures; Bone (one example), U-shaped, 104 × 41
  mm, three small perforations in flat end for hafting; Deer antler;
  Sheet copper and brass (Willoughby, pp. 237-39, 258; Bushnell, pp.
  675, 683-4; Gookin, p. 151)

  LADLE: burl of elm, maple, or other. (Willoughby, p. 258; Gookin,
  p. 151)

  SNOWSHOES: round, “bearpaw” type, rectangular weaving[B]; three
  crossbars; netting attached to frame by wrapping. The toe hole,
  characteristic of most North American snowshoes, is lacking.
  (Davidson, pp. 31-2, 96)

  MOULDS: for casting pipes, buttons, small ornaments, shot and
  bullets of all sizes; slate or other suitable stone; both one and
  two piece. (Willoughby, p. 243-44; Bradford, p. 52)

  CRADLE BOARD: wood (perhaps also bark); forked shaped ends,
  dimensions 2 × 1 feet; braided strap for tying on child; furs for
  covers. (Bushnell, p. 675; Wood, p. 108; Morton, p. 147)

  TORCHES: as fishing lures and for lighting inside houses; birch
  bark or pitch pine; splints or cloven pieces bound into a bundle.
  (Bushnell, p. 675; Willoughby, p. 294)

  FISH HOOKS: bone—one form consists of the shank bone of a fawn,
  ends cut off to make a tubular shape 120 mm. long; line is
  looped through the tube; catches by fish swallowing. Wood with a
  spear-shaped piece of bone attached at more or less right angle,
  producing a fang-shape; point lashed on with hemp. Iron (imported
  ready made from Europe). (Bushnell, p. 675; Howe, pp. 110-15; Wood,
  p. 100)

  NET SINKERS: for keeping stationary net in place; stone. (Chapin,
  p. 11)

  FISH DRYING SCAFFOLDS: no descriptions. (Wood, p. 107)

  ROASTING SPIT: for cooking meat over the fire inside the house;
  stick of wood, notched at one end, other end sharpened to stick
  into ground. (Wood, p. 75)

  BUTTONS: pewter, made by casting; decorated. (Illustrated in
  Willoughby, p. 243, fig. 131)

  LARGE PIPES: carved wood, stone (probably soapstone), carvings to
  represent men and animals; 2 feet long. (Williams, pp. 72-3)

  SMALLER PIPES: soapstone (made in imitation of the English style),
  pewter, clay, brass, combinations of these—stone with brass
  bound bowl, clay stem with bowl of copper. (Williams, pp. 72-3;
  Willoughby, pp. 243-4, 240; Chapin, p. 17; Brereton, p. 38)

  PESTLE: for grinding; stone; one example with top carved to
  represent an animal’s head. (Bushnell, p. 675; Willoughby, pp.
  237-9)

  STONE MORTAR: containing material during grinding (corn
  specifically mentioned); sized from immovable boulder to a smaller
  portable style to cup size (for grinding pigments).

  WOODEN MORTAR: used with stone pestle for corn and probably other
  uses similar to stone mortar; trough-shaped. (Bushnell, p. 675)

  ADZE: woodworking; wood handle and stone head; head smooth and
  convex on one side, often double-grooved on the other side for
  hafting; sizes run from two to ten inches in length, also with
  imported European iron head. (Willoughby, 237-39)

  AXE: woodworking; wood handle, stone head; differ quite markedly
  in weight, thickness, polish, workmanship, and size; approximately
  bi-symmetrical; large ones grooved to hold sinews that bind head
  to handle. Iron head; both axe and hatchet size (from Europeans).
  (Williams; p. 176; Chapin, pp. 6-7).

  DRILLS: for beads; stone, later metal. (Williams, p. 176)

  SCRAPERS: woodworking (probably something similar used in skin
  preparation); clam and oyster shell. (Wood, p. 102)

  CHISEL: beaver incisor hafted onto some sort of handle.
  (Willoughby, pp. 237-39)

  AWL: bone. (Willoughby, pp. 237-39)

  NEEDLE: sewing mats together; bone (“splinter bone of a cranes
  legge”) half of the split rib of a deer. (Morton, p. 135;
  Willoughby, pp. 244-45)

  BAG FOR CARRYING PARCHED CORNMEAL: leather; long pouch worn around
  the waist. (Wood, p. 76)

  TOBACCO BAG: for carrying pipe and tobacco; worn hung down the
  back. (Williams; pp. 72-3)

  QUIVER: contain arrows; woven bulrushes; length one yard; one is
  described as having a decorative band about one foot wide on the
  top and about six inches wide at the bottom of the quiver, in red
  diamonds and patterns of other colors. (Winslow, p. 307; Howe, p.
  71)

  CLUB: weapon. (Gookin, p. 152)

  TOMAHAWK: weapon; wood handle with sharp stone fastened into it.
  (Gookin, p. 152)

  SHIELD: bark. (Gookin, p. 152)

  COMB: one example, made of moose horn, perhaps unique in shape,
  consisted of small set of teeth at the end of a very long handle.
  (Bushnell, p. 683)

  DUGOUT CANOE: pine or chestnut; size variable—some 40-50 feet long
  will carry 20 people; others are about one and a half to two feet
  wide and twenty feet long; hollowed out of tree trunks. (Wood, p.
  102; Gookin, p. 152)

  BIRCH BARK CANOES: sizes probably various—one that would carry
  nine passengers was 17′ × 4′, weighing about 60 pounds; another
  had a seating capacity of five or six. Seams were closed by sewing
  “oziers or twigs” and pitched; ends were pointed, fore and aft,
  but the bow curved slightly upwards. Inside were thin, broad ribs.
  (Wood, p. 102; Pring, p. 58; Gookin, pp. 152-53)

  CANOE PADDLES: ash or maple; lightweight, length about two yards,
  flat on the ends. (Pring, p. 58)

  SAILS: used occasionally; mast of small pole; consisted of skins
  of the sort used for mantles, one or two of these used at a time.
  (Williams, p. 133)

  TOYS: bow and arrow: bow of a stick and arrows of reeds; Pottery
  vessels (miniature). (Wood, pp. 97-98; Willoughby, pp. 237-39)

  SCAFFOLD FOR HANGING POTS OVER FIRE: see p. 64

  FIRE-MAKING KIT

  FISHING LINE

  FISHING NET

  EUROPEAN IMPORTS: in addition to those already mentioned, the
  following items of European technology were obtained and used by
  the Wampanoags: tin cups; pails of tin and iron; wooden chests;
  glass bottles; weapons—guns, pistols, sword and rapier blades,
  hatchets, and axes. (Gookin, pp. 151-52; Mourt’s Relation, p. 144)




FOOTNOTES


[A] Observation by writers of the period tend to be heavily biased by
their own intense interest in Christianity, making them less useful
for ethnographic purposes than most of the contemporary comment.
Therefore this section can be little more than a listing of a few of
the traits that comprised Wampanoag religious beliefs.

[B] D. S. Davidson, “Snowshoes,” MEMOIR OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL
SOCIETY, #6 (Philadelphia, 1937), pp. 31-2. “As the name implies,
rectangular weaving consists of a series of warp and woof strands
interwoven at right angles, in most cases in an over one under one
fashion. Since embellishments in the forms of double strands, twists,
and half hitches are often found, the term ‘rectangular’ has been
selected as better suited than ‘plaiting’. This type of weaving
is almost limited to North America. It is concentrated in Alaska
and the Mackenzie region.... Elsewhere in North America it occurs
sporadically.”




NOTES


[1] Alden T. Vaughan, NEW ENGLAND FRONTIER: PURITANS AND INDIANS
1620-1675, p. 54.

[2] “And though there be difference in a hundred miles’ distance of
place, both in language and manners, yet not so much but that they
very well understand each other. And thus much of their lives and
manners.”; Edward Winslow, “Winslow’s Relation” in CHRONICLES OF
THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF THE COLONY OF PLYMOUTH FROM 1602 TO 1625,
Alexander Young, ed. pp. 366-67; also Roger Williams, A KEY INTO
THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA: OR AN HELP TO THE LANGUAGE OF THE NATIVES
IN THAT PART OF AMERICA, CALLED NEW-ENGLAND, p. 20; Daniel Gookin,
HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS OF THE INDIANS IN NEW ENGLAND, p. 149.
Willoughby states that the Massachusetts, Wampanoags, Narragansetts,
and Nipmucs, together with the Nontauks of Long Island formed a
dialect group by themselves; Charles C. Willoughby, ANTIQUITIES OF
THE NEW ENGLAND INDIANS, p. 276.

[3] Vaughan, p. 54.

[4] Gookin, p. 158.

[5] James Mooney, “The Aboriginal Population of America North of
Mexico,” SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS LXXX (February 6,
1928), p. 3.

[6] Douglas Edward Leach, FLINTLOCK AND TOMAHAWK: NEW ENGLAND IN KING
PHILIP’S WAR (New York, 1959), p. 1.

[7] Professor Demitri Shimkin, personal communication.

[8] Vaughan, p. 53.

[9] Emmanuel Altham, “Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham,
September, 1623”, THREE VISITORS TO EARLY PLYMOUTH, Sydney V. James,
Jr., ed. (Plimoth Plantation, 1963), p. 29; Gookin, p. 158.

[10] Altham, p. 29.

[11] Gookin, p. 158.

[12] Figures on Wampanoag population, unlike the case for several
other New England groups, are not abundant. This is the only estimate
found by the author; Leach, p. 1.

[13] Mooney, p. 3.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Vaughan, p. 28.

[16] In actual fact, exposure to the sun, the usual coating of
grease, and an inevitable layer of dust must have altered skin color
somewhat.

[17] Willoughby, pp. 230-31.

[18] Ibid.

[19] Ibid., p. 66. The Narragansetts’ name for the Englishmen was
“knive men”; Williams, p. 176.

[20] Willoughby, p. 243.

[21] Ibid., pp. 243-44; Williams, pp. 72-73.

[22] William Bradford, HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION 1620-1647, II
(Boston, 1912), pp. 52-53.

[23] For an example of the Indians’ sentiment toward the embrace
of Christianity, the following passage from Wood: “... since the
English frequented those parts, they daily fall from his the devil’s
colours, relinquishing their former fopperies, and acknowledge our
God to be supreame. They acknowledge the power of the Englishmans
God, as they call him, because they could never yet have power by
their conjurations to damnifie the English either in body or goods;
and besides, they say hee is a good God that sends them so many good
things, so much good corne, so many cattell, temperate raines, faire
seasons, which they likewise are the better for since the arrivall
of the English; the time and seasons being much altered in seven
or eight years, freer from lightning and thunder, long droughts,
suddaine and tempestuous dashes of raine, and lamentable cold
Winters.”; William Wood, NEW ENGLAND’S PROSPECT (Boston, 1865), p. 94.

[24] M. K. Bennett, “The Food Economy of the New England Indians,”
THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, LXIII (October, 1955), p. 395.

[25] John Elliot, quoted in Edward Winslow, “The Glorious Progress
of the Gospel Amongst the Indians in New England,” Massachusetts
Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3 IV (Boston, 1834), p. 81.

[26] Willoughby, pp. 297-98.

[27] Bennett, pp. 385-86; Leach, p. 3; Thomas Morton, THE NEW ENGLISH
CANAAN (Boston, 1883), p. 138; Williams, pp. 74-75; Willoughby, pp.
297-98; Wood, pp. 100-101.

[28] Gookin, pp. 150-51. According to the account by Champlain,
the artichoke, _Helianthus tuberosa_, was actually cultivated by
the Indians; Henry F. Howe, PROLOGUE TO NEW ENGLAND (New York and
Toronto, 1943), pp. 72-73. Williams, pp. 120-22; Willoughby, pp.
297-99; Wood, pp. 75-76.

[29] Williams mentions another kind of berry, for which he did not
know the name, “... growing in fresh Waters all the Winter, Excellent
in conserve against Feavers”. The editor of Williams’ work suggests
that perhaps this was the cranberry; Williams, pp. 120-21.

[30] Willoughby, p. 299.

[31] Bennett, pp. 385-86; Frank G. Speck and Ralph W. Dexter,
“Utilization of Marine Life by the Wampanoag Indians of
Massachusetts,” JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES XXXVIII
(Menasha, August 15, 1948), p. 262; Vaughan, p. 30; Willoughby, pp.
297-98; Wood, p. 170.

[32] Wood, p. 170.

[33] Vaughan, p. 30; Williams, pp. 115-16.

[34] Williams, p. 115; Wood, p. 75.

[35] Williams, p. 116.

[36] Ibid., p. 115.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid., pp. 188-193; Vaughan, p. 30; Wood, pp. 98-100.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Williams, pp. 188-193.

[42] Wood, pp. 98-99.

[43] MOURT’S RELATION OR JOURNAL OF THE PLANTATION OF PLYMOUTH
(London, 1622), reprinted in Alexander Young, CHRONICLES OF THE
PILGRIM FATHERS FROM 1602-1625, Alexander Young, ed. (Boston, 1841),
pp. 136-37; Williams, pp. 188-193; Winslow, p. 362; Wood, pp. 98-100.

[44] Wood, pp. 99-100.

[45] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 136-37.

[46] Wood, pp. 99-100.

[47] Williams, pp. 188-193.

[48] Ibid.

[49] Ibid.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid.; Wood, pp. 99-100.

[52] Williams, pp. 188-193; Winslow, p. 362.

[53] Williams, pp. 188-93.

[54] Ibid., Wood, pp. 99-100.

[55] Williams, pp. 188-93.

[56] Wood, pp. 99-100.

[57] “... it being the custome of the Indians to burne wood in
November when the grass is withered, and leaves dryed.”; Wood, p. 17.
“The Salvages are accustomed to set fire of the Country in all places
where they come, and to burne it twize a yeare, viz. at the Spring
and the fall of the leafe”; Morton, p. 172.

[58] Wood, p. 101.

[59] Bradford, I, p. 168; D. S. Byers, “The Environment of the
Northeast”, MAN IN NORTHEASTERN NORTH AMERICA, Frederick Johnson, ed.
(Andover, 1946), p. 25; Williams, p. 136.

[60] turbot, halibut, plaice, flounder.

[61] resembles a smelt.

[62] Champlain in Howe, pp. 110-115; Gookin, p. 150. It is not really
possible to tell which of these fish were in most frequent use; bass
seems to be the most mentioned by writers on tribes in the area.
Josselyn lists the following as favorites of the Indians: striped
bass, sturgeon, salmon, eels and lamphreys and frostfish. Since he
does not tell the specific groups he was writing about and since his
home was to the north of our area of concern, it is not certain that
this list is representative of the preferences of Indians in the
Plymouth area; Bennett, pp. 385-86. MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 196, 205;
Williams, pp. 136-37, 142; Wood, pp. 100-102.

[63] Byers, p. 26.

[64] Bennett, pp. 385-86.

[65] “Of their fishing, in this trade they be very expert, being
experienced in the knowledge of all baites, fitting sundry baites for
the severall fishes, and diverse seasons; being not ignorant likewise
of the removall of fishes, knowing when to fish in rivers, and when
at rocks, when in Baies, and when at seas....”; Wood, p. 100.

[66] Champlain in Howe, pp. 110-115; Wood, pp. 100-101, 107.

[67] Champlain in Howe, pp. 110-115; Wood, p. 107.

[68] Wood, p. 107.

[69] Williams, p. 142; Wood, pp. 100-101.

[70] Wood, pp. 100-102.

[71] Williams, p. 137.

[72] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 205. One technique, found among the 19th
century descendants of the Wampanoags, was: “Fish wiers were built in
shallow water with nets having notched stone sinkers tied to them for
anchorage.”; Speck and Dexter, p. 264.

[73] Williams, p. 137.

[74] Wood, pp. 100-101.

[75] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 196.

[76] Bradford, I, p. 162. There is no information as to the role of
the dog in Wampanoag culture.

[77] Wood, p. 94.

[78] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 133; Willoughby, p. 296.

[79] Martin Pring’s Narrative in Howe, pp. 72-73.

[80] Ibid.; Willoughby, p. 296.

[81] Williams, p. 123; Wood, p. 106.

[82] Williams, p. 114.

[83] Ibid., p. 117.

[84] Willoughby, pp. 297-98.

[85] Wood, p. 106.

[86] Champlain in Howe, p. 130.

[87] Ibid. Early observers were impressed with the agricultural skill
of the Indians and characterized them as being mainly dependent for
their livelihood upon the corn they grew. Speaking from a present-day
vantage point, with considerably more information at hand about the
practices of primitive horticulturalists, one must be more cautious
about drawing such a conclusion. In regard to the amount of corn
produced, Williams says: “The woman of the family will commonly
raise two or three heaps of twelve, fifteene, or twentie bushells a
heap ... and if she have the helpe of her children or friends, much
more.” (p. 124). Presumably the size of the fields on which this was
grown averaged out to about an acre per family. The Pilgrims were
able to get corn from the Indians in order to survive their initial
hardships. Later they tell of obtaining rather large amounts of corn
from the Indians along the coast to take north to trade (Willoughby,
pp. 297-98). However, before assuming that agriculture was the major
food source for the Wampanoags, it should be remembered that these
Indians and their neighbors were best known to the early chroniclers
in their coastal farming settlements. When they were living in the
forest during hunting season and in the winter villages they were
probably seldom seen by the Europeans. Therefore, the foreigner’s
view of Indian dietary habits may not contain the entire story. The
habitual use of acorns and ground nuts as starvation foods indicates
that their control of agricultural food supplies was not as yet
always dependable. Probably horticulture had come to largely supplant
a pattern of summer gathering of vegetable foods and to be ordinarily
more productive than the former practice. But without the addition
of animal foods, the crops alone probably would not normally have
provided enough food to sustain the Indians.

[88] Williams, p. 136; Willoughby, p. 299; Wood, p. 107.

[89] Wood, p. 107.

[90] Ibid. Meat was probably dried in the same way, but the only
mention of this is smoke-dried moose’s tongue (a delicacy);
Willoughby, p. 299.

[91] Wood, p. 107.

[92] Morton, p. 160; Williams, p. 120.

[93] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 133.

[94] Ibid.; p. 141. Champlain notes that the depth of these holes
was “some five or six feet,” and that they were mounded up three or
four feet; Howe, p. 133. Morton, p. 160, notes the capacity of these
storage pits as being a “hogshead” apiece. Williams, pp. 120-22.

[95] Wood, p. 106.

[96] Ibid., p. 107; Williams, p. 136.

[97] Wood, p. 75; Gookin, pp. 150-151.

[98] “Their spits are no other than cloven sticks sharped at one end
to thrust into the ground; onto these cloven sticks they thrust the
flesh or fish they would have rosted, behemming a round fire with a
dozen of spits at a time, turning them as they see occasion.”; Wood,
p. 75.

[99] Gookin, p. 150.

[100] Ibid.

[101] Williams, p. 136.

[102] Ibid.

[103] Gookin, pp. 150-51; Williams, p. 40; Wood, p. 76.

[104] D. Bushnell, Jr., “The Sloane Collection in the British
Museum,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., VIII (1906), p. 675.

[105] Gookin, p. 150; Williams, p. 40.

[106] Gookin, pp. 150-51; Williams, p. 40; Wood, p. 76.

[107] Williams, p. 40.

[108] Ibid., pp. 120-22; Gookin, pp. 150-51.

[109] Williams, p. 122.

[110] Ibid., p. 121.

[111] Ibid., p. 120.

[112] Ibid.; no description of the process is given.

[113] Including snakes. John Brereton’s narrative in SAILORS
NARRATIVES OF VOYAGES ALONG THE NEW ENGLAND COAST 1524-1624, George
Parker Winship, ed. (Boston, 1905), p. 50.

[114] This is the conclusion reached by Bennett after a study of the
subject, and the current writer could not find reference to its use
by Indians of the area either; Bennett, p. 384.

[115] Bennett estimates that 65% of the caloric intake was provided
by corn; Ibid., p. 394.

[116] Wood, pp. 75-76.

[117] Ibid., p. 77; Williams, p. 136.

[118] Williams, p. 120.

[119] Martin Pring, “The Voyage of Martin Pring” in SAILORS
NARRATIVES—, George Parker Winship, ed. (Boston, 1905), p. 56. This
combined with the evidence of periodic scarcity provided by the
existence of “starvation foods” and the evidence for large gatherings
of people to take fish during their spring runs, suggests that there
was a fairly heavy dietary dependence upon fish from early spring
until the time the corn ripened.

[120] Morton, p. 137.

[121] Wood, p. 76.

[122] Ibid., pp. 75-76.

[123] Ibid.

[124] Leach, p. 137.

[125] Williams, p. 40; Wood, p. 76.

[126] Morton, p. 137; Wood, p. 77.

[127] Bennett, p. 395.

[128] Ibid.

[129] Williams, pp. 72-73.

[130] Ibid.

[131] Brereton, p. 38.

[132] Williams, pp. 72-73.

[133] Ibid., p. 100.

[134] Ibid., p. 43; The use of tobacco by women is listed by Flannery
as a southern New England trait.

[135] Ibid.

[136] Wood, p. 73.

[137] Ibid., p. 101; Williams, p. 145.

[138] Williams, p. 145.

[139] Morton, p. 142; Wood, p. 73.

[140] “... they have likewise another sort of mantles, made of Mose
skinnes, which beast is a great large Deere so bigge as a horse;
these skinnes they commonly dress bare, and make them wondrous
white.”; Morton, pp. 142-43.

[141] Probably the material used for this embroidery was moose hair
and/or porcupine quills as was done by the Algonquians living farther
north. The information about the style of this decoration is not very
extensive: “... in forme like lace set on by a Taylor ... of severall
fashions very curious, according to the several fantasies of the
workmen, wherein they strive to excell one another....”; Morton, pp.
142-43; Williams, p. 145; Wood, p. 101.

[142] Morton, p. 143.

[143] Gookin, p. 152; Wood, p. 73.

[144] Morton, p. 141.

[145] Ibid., pp. 135-37.

[146] Ibid., p. 143; Williams, p. 40; Willoughby, p. 239; Wood, p. 76.

[147] Some information about items in this category has come to light
through archaeology. Where pieces of textile have been buried near
metal objects, as was sometimes the case in Indian graves in this
region, the metal acted to preserve fragments of the otherwise highly
perishable textile industry.

[148] Byers, pp. 16-17; Gookin, p. 151; Willoughby, pp. 233, 244-45,
248.

[149] Wood, pp. 101-102.

[150] One such line was collected by John Winthrop eventually placed
in the British Museum. Its length is 13.6 meters; Bushnell, p. 84.

[151] In this case, the line itself was made out of bast fiber;
Champlain in Howe, p. 115.

[152] Williams, p. 137.

[153] Wood, p. 102.

[154] Ibid., p. 107; Williams, pp. 65, 133; Willoughby, p. 248.

[155] Willoughby, p. 248.

[156] Gookin, p. 151; Wood, p. 107.

[157] Willoughby, pp. 244-45.

[158] Samuel Champlain’s narrative in SAILOR’S NARRATIVES—, George
Parker Winship, ed. (Boston, 1905), p. 90.

[159] Gookin, p. 152; Morton, pp. 142-43.

[160] This is the technique for making similar garments used by other
American Indian groups.

[161] Morton, pp. 134-35; Wood, p. 30.

[162] Willoughby, pp. 244-45.

[163] Ibid.; Gookin, p. 152.

[164] Gookin, p. 151; MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45. “From the tree
where the bark grows, they make severall sorts of baskets, great and
small. Some will hold four bushels, or more: and so downward, to
a pint. In their baskets they put their provisions. Some of their
baskets are made of rushes; some, of bents; others of maize husks:
others, of a kind of silk grass: others of a kind of wild hemp: and
some, of barks of trees: many of them very neat and artificial, with
the portraitures of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers upon them in
colours.”; Wood, p. 107.

[165] Wood, p. 107.

[166] Willoughby, p. 248.

[167] Ibid.; Gookin, p. 150.

[168] Willoughby, p. 248.

[169] Williams, p. 40.

[170] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 133.

[171] Willoughby, p. 244.

[172] Wood, p. 107.

[173] Ibid.

[174] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45.

[175] Willoughby, p. 151, illustrates one basket, dating about
1675 and made by the Narragansetts. It is a twined basket; the
materials are basswood bark and corn husk, the decoration being in
the latter. Red wool yarn also once was part of the decoration, but
that has been since destroyed. Designs are worked in light corn husk,
which forms part of the weft element. Design form is geometric,
non-representational, diagonal steps, horizontal bands, and
disconnected square spots. Design field covers the entire side area
of the basket, which is tall and narrow in shape. Recalling Gookin’s
description of zoomorphic decoration, there is reason to suspect
considerable scope to the decorative content of this style.

[176] Brereton, p. 50, writes of them as being four feet long and six
inches wide. Pring in Howe, p. 72. Pring, p. 56, says the belts were
“sixe foot long” and made of a snake’s skin.

[177] Gookin, p. 152.

[178] Breech clouts worn by women are described as hanging down a
little longer in back than those worn by men; Pring in Howe, p. 72;
Williams, p. 143.

[179] Williams, p. 143.

[180] Vaughan, pp. 47-48, lists fish oil, eagle and rackoon fat, bear
and later pig grease used for this purpose.

[181] The deerskin from which both breech clouts and leggings were
made was de-haired; Morton, pp. 142-43. The method of fastening
leggings aboriginally is not described. Wood, p. 73, says that they
were attached to the belt with buttons, which in post-contact times
is not so unlikely, considering that the Indians learned to mould
buttons out of pewter. MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 186-87; Winslow, p. 72.

[182] Morton, pp. 142-43; Willoughby, p. 208.

[183] Wood, p. 73.

[184] Pring in Howe, p. 72; MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 186-87; Winslow, p.
365.

[185] Morton, p. 144.

[186] Ibid., pp. 142-43.

[187] Massasoit sometimes wore a mantle of black wolf skin; Altham,
p. 30; Gookin, p. 152; Wood, p. 73.

[188] Morton, p. 144.

[189] Champlain, p. 90.

[190] Twilling is a variety of plaited weaving.

[191] “This fringe is formed of the ends of the warp reinforced
with loops of the same material to give additional thickness, all
being nicely bound together by a single double woof cord of twined
weaving.”; Willoughby, p. 247.

[192] Ibid., p. 280; Pring in Howe, p. 72.

[193] Morton, p. 143.

[194] Materials mentioned for sleeves are otter, fox, and cat fur;
Winslow, p. 365 and MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 186-87; Willoughby, p. 247;
Wood, p. 73.

[195] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 186-87.

[196] Morton, pp. 142-43.

[197] Williams, p. 98.

[198] Wood, p. 73.

[199] Rowlandson gives the following description of Indians in 1676
wearing festive attire: “He was dressed in his Holland shirt, with
girdles of wampom upon his head and shoulders. She had a kersey coat,
covered with girdles of wampom from the loins upward. Her arms from
her elbows to her hands were covered with bracelets; theyre were
handfuls of necklaces about her neck, and several sorts of jewels
in her ears. She had fine red stockings, and white shoes, her hair
powered, and her face painted red....”, in S. G. Drake, TRAGEDIES OF
THE WILDERNESS (Boston, 1841), pp. 51-52.

[200] Gookin, p. 152.

[201] Ibid. This material came in widths of about a yard and half,
and was colored blue, red, purple, and some was used white. About two
yards would be used to make a mantle for a man or woman.

[202] Williams, pp. 143-45.

[203] These items also appear archaeologically, but in most cases the
dating is imprecise.

[204] All work in copper and brass was done by pounding the soft
metal into shape, and cutting was probably done by scoring with a
sharpened stone. Metal casting was unknown to the Wampanoags prior to
the arrival of European settlers.

[205] Archer’s narrative in Howe, p. 59. A breastplate of this
description was excavated in a burial at Fall River, Massachusetts;
Willoughby, p. 233.

[206] It is thought, based on excavated remains, that the wood used
was elder; Willoughby, pp. 233, 238-39.

[207] A burial was excavated in which a bandolier lay across the
copper breastplate, possibly indicating simultaneous wearing;
Willoughby, p. 233.

[208] Willoughby, pp. 240-41. These were joined by running a thread
through the bead and looping it around two threads running along the
ends of the beads; Ibid., p. 233. Stringing material in one case was
a 2-ply twisted cord; Ibid., p. 238.

[209] Brereton, pp. 43-44, reported the wearing of this style of
necklace simultaneously with a bandolier.

[210] Brereton, p. 43; Archer in Howe, p. 59. A gorget recovered
archaeologically was disc-shaped, of sheet brass, with two
perforations; Willoughby, pp. 238-39.

[211] A large copper necklace was placed about the neck of an
important chief’s daughter in a Rhode Island burial that dates
to about 1660; H. H. Wilder, “Notes on the Indians of Southern
Massachusetts,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns. XXV (1923), p. 211.

[212] Wood, p. 74.

[213] Willoughby, p. 265, notes that “... the term _Wampum_ or
_wampumpeage_ was usually applied by the New England tribes to the
white beads and _suckauhock_, _mowhackees_ or _macheis_ to the purple
variety, both types were generally known to the English as _wampum_.”

[214] Bradford, II, p. 43.

[215] Altham, p. 30.

[216] Gookin, p. 152; Thomas Lechford, PLAIN DEALING, OR NEWS FROM
NEW ENGLAND, J. H. Trumbull, ed. (Boston, 1868), pp. 116-117,
describes one such belt as having a checkered design.

[217] Bushnell, p. 674; Lechford, pp. 116-117; Williams, pp. 177-78.

[218] A “belt” of wampum might range in size from one to five or
more inches wide; Williams, pp. 177-78. Willoughby, p. 271, cites a
contemporary account of wampum belts owned by King Philip: “One of
King Philip’s belts, ‘curiously wrought with black and white wampum
in various figures and flowers and pictures of many birds and beasts’
was nine inches broad, and when hung about Captain Church’s shoulders
reached to his ankles. Philip had two other belts, one with two flags
upon the back which hung from his head, the other with a star upon
the end which hung from his breast. When Philip visited Boston he
wore a coat and leggings, set with wampum ‘in pleasant wild works’
and a broad belt of the same.”

[219] Willoughby, p. 265.

[220] Ibid.; Bushnell, p. 647; Williams, p. 176.

[221] A breastplate, the collar made of wampum and the main body of
“shells out of the up country fresh water lakes”, worn on occasion of
war and feast, was among the items collected and described by John
Winthrop; Bushnell, p. 674.

[222] Willoughby, pp. 271-74.

[223] Ibid., pp. 238-39.

[224] Willoughby, p. 198, describes a group of seeds “resembling
those of the _Cornus_” with the ends ground off preparatory to
stringing. These were found archaeologically, associated with
European trade beads. MOURT’S RELATION, p. 194, describes Massasoit
as wearing a “great chain of white bone beads about his neck”.

[225] Verrazano’s narrative in Howe, p. 15. It is possible that glass
trade beads were not very popular among the Wampanoags in the early
17th century. There are 16th century accounts of glass beads given to
the Indians by explorers, and glass beads dating to the early 16th
century have been in graves in this area, but glass beads are not
mentioned as a part of Indian dress by writers of the early colonial
period.

[226] Wood, p. 74.

[227] “... in forme of mullets or spur-rowels”; Ibid. Mullet is the
same shape as a rowel.

[228] Gookin, p. 153; Rowlandson, pp. 51-52.

[229] Gookin, p. 153; MOURT’S RELATION, p. 194.

[230] Gookin, p. 153; Verrazano in Howe, pp. 15, 59; MOURT’S
RELATION, p. 194, mentions painted faces “with crosses, and some
other antic works....” This could be actual painting in patterns or a
mistaking of tattoos for paint.

[231] Archer in Howe, p. 59; Champlain, p. 91; Gookin, p. 153;
MOURT’S RELATION, p. 194; Vaughan, p. 42; Verrazano in Howe, p. 15;
Wood, p. 74.

[232] Gookin, p. 153.

[233] Ibid.; Rowlandson, pp. 51-52; Vaughan, p. 42.

[234] Lechford, p. 116.

[235] “Their Virgins are distinguished by a bashfull falling downe of
their haire over their eyes.”; Williams, p. 58.

[236] Winslow, p. 364.

[237] “... Their boyes being not permitted to weare their haire
long till sixteene years of age, and then they must come to it by
degrees....”; Wood, pp. 71-72.

[238] Ibid.

[239] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 183, 187.

[240] Pring in Howe, p. 72.

[241] Ibid.; Champlain, p. 90; Gookin, p. 153; Lechford, p.
116; Wood, pp. 71-72, gives a description of hairstyles for the
Massachusetts. For a youth above sixteen there was a long lock in
front, on the crown, and on either side. The rest of the hair was
shaved off close to the scalp. A warrior wore his hair long on one
side and short on the other.

[242] Gookin, p. 153.

[243] Ibid.; Pring in Howe, p. 72; Lechford, p. 116.

[244] Gookin, p. 153; Archer in Howe, p. 59; MOURT’S RELATION, p. 187.

[245] Lechford, p. 116. An ornamental comb of the same style in brass
was recovered archaeologically; Willoughby, pp. 235, 243-44.

[246] Champlain, p. 90.

[247] Ibid., p. 91; Wood, p. 72.

[248] Brereton in Howe, p. 64.

[249] Ibid., p. 105.

[250] Byers, p. 16.

[251] Williams, p. 206.

[252] Gookin, pp. 152-53.

[253] H. M. Chapin, “Indian Implements found in Rhode Island,” Rhode
Island Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, XVIII (1924), p. 15, notes
that soapstone quarries known to have been used by the Indians
are located at Johnstone and Westerly, R.I., and Wood, p. 69,
mentions the source of stone pipes as being to the south, among the
Narragansetts. Although it is true that copper and brass were early
obtained by trade from Europeans, native copper was also available.
Byers, p. 5, cites several locations of outcroppings in western
Massachusetts and Connecticut. Copper items from at least one site in
Massachusetts have been analyzed and found to be of native materials.

[254] These items were probably all available in surface
outcroppings, and specialized techniques other than knocking off
chunks were unnecessary; Chapin, p. 3.

[255] It is not known whether the Wampanoags made their own clay
pots or traded for them. However, explorers reported that there were
outcroppings of potting quality clay in Plymouth. Brereton, p. 38,
reports that there was clay on Martha’s Vineyard which the Indians
there used for making pipes.

[256] Chapin, p. 15.

[257] Ibid.

[258] Wood, pp. 69-70.

[259] Bradford, II, p. 52; Willoughby, pp. 243-44.

[260] Willoughby, pp. 243-44.

[261] Gookin, p. 152.

[262] Champlain in Howe, p. 105; Wood, p. 102.

[263] Champlain in Howe, p. 105; Gookin, p. 152; Willoughby, p. 154;
Wood, p. 102.

[264] Champlain in Howe, p. 105.

[265] Ibid.

[266] Willoughby, p. 154.

[267] Champlain in Howe, p. 105; Wood, p. 102.

[268] Champlain in Howe, p. 105.

[269] Once a bowl was thus far completed, it is reported that they
would “soak it in their minerall springs to dye it”; Bushnell, p. 675.

[270] Pring, p. 58.

[271] Byers, p. 16.

[272] The weight of even a large version of this canoe (9-passenger)
did not exceed 60 pounds; Pring, p. 58.

[273] “... sewing them with a kind of bark....”; Gookin, pp. 152-53.
“... sowed together with strong and tough oziers or twigs....”; Pring
p. 58.

[274] Ibid.

[275] Gookin, p. 152-53; Wood, p. 102.

[276] Bushnell, p. 675.

[277] Champlain in Howe, pp. 117, 133-34; Morton, pp. 134-35; MOURT’S
RELATION, p. 144; Verrazano in Howe, p. 17; Williams, pp. 60-61;
Wood, pp. 105-6.

[278] Gookin, pp. 149-50; Vaughan, p. 46; Williams, pp. 60-61.

[279] Williams, pp. 60-61.

[280] Ibid.; Gookin, pp. 149-50; Wood, pp. 105-6.

[281] Vaughan, p. 46.

[282] Ibid.

[283] And it is the type with which the early colonists of Plymouth
would have been the most familiar. We have no firsthand accounts of
the use of the longhouse by the Wampanoags; however, we do know that
it was in use among the Narragansetts and the Massachusetts, which is
strong evidence that the Wampanoags, who followed a similar pattern
of seasonal settlement had this structure also.

[284] “Two families will live comfortably and lovingly in a little
round house of some fourteen or sixteen foot over, and so more and
more families in proportion”; Williams, pp. 60-61. However, according
to Gookin, they might go up to 40 feet in diameter: “These houses
they make of several sizes, according to their activity and ability;
some twenty, some forty feet long, and broad.” Gookin, pp. 149-50.

[285] Champlain, p. 117.

[286] MOURT’S RELATION, p. 144; Williams, p. 67.

[287] Morton, pp. 134-35, says that they place the mats of their
houses “... leaving severall places for dores, according as the winde
sitts.”

[288] Williams, p. 67.

[289] Morton, pp. 134-35.

[290] Their manufacture is discussed more fully in a previous section
on textiles.

[291] Williams, p. 67.

[292] Gookin, pp. 149-50.

[293] Ibid.

[294] Williams, p. 61.

[295] Gookin, pp. 149-50; Champlain in Howe, pp. 117, 133-34; Morton,
pp. 134-135; MOURT’S RELATION, p. 144.

[296] Wood, pp. 105-6.

[297] Williams, p. 163. The sachem’s house is called by a different
name from that of an ordinary dwelling; Winslow, p. 317.

[298] Wood, p. 98.

[299] Williams, p. 189. These would probably have varied considerably
depending on whether it was a single hunter or two that was being
housed or whether the whole family made the move. As mentioned
earlier, both patterns were followed. Structures housing single
hunters could have been mere lean-to’s or something like the bark
_wickiup_ used to the north. When a family was living in the hunting
camp, there would have been women to carry up the mats, and the house
was probably more elaborate; it may have been built in the usual
hemispherical plan.

[300] Rowlandson, p. 50; Williams, p. 194.

[301] Williams, pp. 60-61, 114.

[302] Ibid., pp. 211-12; E. L. Butler, “Sweat Houses in the Southern
New England Area,” BULLETIN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL
SOCIETY, VII (October, 1945), p. 12.

[303] Williams, pp. 60-61; Willoughby, pp. 244-45. “Embroidery” might
also refer to designs that were woven into the mats.

[304] Gookin, p. 150.

[305] Ibid.; Morton, pp. 135-37.

[306] Gookin, p. 150; Champlain in Howe, pp. 133-34; Morton, pp.
135-37.

[307] Gookin, p. 150; Morton, pp. 135-37. Kinds of skins mentioned
for this purpose are: deer, bear, otter, beaver, racoon.

[308] Gookin, p. 151.

[309] Ibid.; Wood, p. 75.

[310] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45; Williams, p. 65.

[311] Gookin, p. 151; MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45.

[312] Morton, pp. 135-37.

[313] Ibid.

[314] MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45; Willoughby, 292.

[315] Morton, pp. 135-37.

[316] “... we found also two or three deer’s heads, one whereof had
been newly killed, for it was still fresh. There was also a company
of deer’s feet stuck up in the house, hart’s horns, and eagles’
claws, and sundry such like things there was; also two or three
baskets full of parched acorns, pieces of fish, and a piece of a
broiled herring”; MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 144-45. Willoughby, p. 248.

[317] Champlain in Howe, pp. 112, 133; Rowlandson, pp. 46-47, has
wives occupying separate households, where there are multiple wives.

[318] Champlain in Howe, pp. 172-73.

[319] Ibid., p. 112.

[320] Wood, p. 106.

[321] Williams, pp. 74-75.

[322] When Plimoth Plantation was established there were no Indians
settlements in its immediate neighborhood. The former village of
Patuxet, once located on the site of Plymouth and said to have had
a population of two thousand, was wiped out by the plague prior to
the settlement of Europeans. Altham, p. 29, reports that the nearest
Indian settlement to Plymouth was called Manomet and was fourteen
miles away. This is probably identical with the town of Mannamit,
described by Chase as being in Sandwich, near the bottom of Buzzard’s
Bay; H. E. Chase, “Notes on the Wampanoag Indians,” SMITHSONIAN
ANNUAL REPORT, 1883 (Washington, 1885), p. 888.

[323] If, as reports indicate, twelve to twenty men went out from
each summer village in the fall to their hunting camps, and it may
be assumed that these represent most of all the able-bodied adult
male population, then we would seem to be dealing with summer village
populations whose total numbers would equal in size the population of
a winter longhouse. It might further be surmised that the personnel
of each are identical; in other words, the same group of 40 to 50
people may have formed a camping-together unit for most of the year,
living together in the same longhouse in winter and camping near each
other as a summer village.

[324] Wood, pp. 100-101.

[325] “... a bundle of Indian candles or splints of the pitch tree”;
Bushnell, p. 675. Willoughby, p. 294.

[326] Brereton in Howe, pp. 63-64; John Josselyn, “An account of
Two Voyages to New England,” Massachusetts Historical Society
COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3, III, (Boston, 1883), p. 257; Morton, p. 172;
Williams, p. 100.

[327] Williams, pp. 57, 87.

[328] Winslow, p. 367.

[329] Gookin, p. 153.

[330] Williams, p. 153, estimates the value of each gift as about
“... eighteen pence, two Shillings, or thereabouts....”

[331] Ibid.; Rowlandson, p. 50.

[332] Chase, p. 900; Morton, pp. 141, 158-59; Williams, pp. 174-75.

[333] Morton, pp. 158-59; Williams, pp. 174-75.

[334] Chase, p. 900.

[335] Williams, pp. 174-75.

[336] Morton, p. 141.

[337] Ibid., pp. 158-59.

[338] Williams, p. 173; Wood, p. 69.

[339] Willoughby, p. 266.

[340] Ibid., pp. 266-67.

[341] Bradford, II, pp. 43-44.

[342] Willoughby, pp. 270-71.

[343] Morton, p. 157.

[344] Willoughby, p. 270.

[345] Morton, p. 157.

[346] Willoughby, p. 267.

[347] Gookin, p. 151; Williams, pp. 66, 75; Winslow, p. 363.

[348] Winslow, p. 363; Williams, p. 66.

[349] Winslow, p. 363; Wood, p. 105.

[350] Wood, p. 105.

[351] Williams, p. 66.

[352] Winslow, p. 364.

[353] Ibid., p. 363; Willoughby, p. 132.

[354] Vaughan, pp. 49-50.

[355] Gookin, p. 151; Williams, pp. 32, 132; Williams, p. 75.

[356] Williams, p. 123.

[357] Ibid.

[358] Willoughby, p. 132.

[359] Ibid., pp. 282-83; Byers, pp. 22-23; Morton, p. 172.

[360] Williams, p. 98.

[361] Ibid., pp. 97-98.

[362] Morton, p. 144.

[363] Gookin, pp. 152-53.

[364] Ibid., Williams, p. 134; Wood, p. 102.

[365] Wood, p. 102.

[366] Ibid.; Pring, p. 58.

[367] Williams, p. 134.

[368] Wood says that this is so that a player would not know who to
blame for any injury he might receive on the playing field.

[369] Williams, p. 196; Wood, pp. 83, 96-98.

[370] “... their swimming is not after our English fashion of spread
armes and legges which they hold too tiresome, but like dogges their
armes before them cutting through the liquids with their right
shoulder; in this manner they swim very swift and farre....”; Wood,
pp. 97-98.

[371] Ibid.

[372] Ibid., pp. 95-96.

[373] “The bones being all blacke or white make a double game; if
three be of a colour and two of another, then they afford but a
single game; foure of a colour and one differing is nothing; so long
as a man wins, he keepes the Tray; but if he loose, the next man
takes it”; Ibid.

[374] Ibid., Williams, p. 194.

[375] Winslow, p. 307; Wood, pp. 83, 95-96.

[376] Williams, p. 194.

[377] Ibid., p. 196; Winslow, p. 307; Wood, p. 83.

[378] Williams, p. 197. The Europeans whose writings provide most of
the information about Wampanoag culture thought such gatherings were
occasions for communion with the devil, and most feared to attend
and risk being corrupted. Therefore, information is scarce as to the
purpose and form of “ceremonial” activities.

[379] Elliot, p. 81; Morton, p. 138.

[380] Williams, p. 151.

[381] Ibid.

[382] Ibid., p. 153.

[383] Ibid., pp. 82-83.

[384] Gookin, p. 153. None of the music has survived, but it seems
to have struck Europeans as pleasant sounding. Wood, p. 108, reports
that the sound of an Indian woman singing a lullaby was sweet to his
ears.

[385] There is one report of the use of a kettle to beat on as a
drum during a dance, but there is no indication of aboriginal use or
manufacture of drums; Rowlandson, pp. 48-50. Williams, p. 57.

[386] Eight in one case.

[387] It is not known whether all personal property was buried with
the owner or whether some was inherited by friends or relatives.

[388] Lands were allotted upon request for planting, and hunting
territories were probably granted in a similar way. Both individuals
and some form of “family” are mentioned as receiving such lands;
Vaughan, pp. 33-34, 105; Williams, pp. 120, 188-93.

[389] Williams, pp. 188-93; Winslow, pp. 316-62.

[390] Vaughan, p. 54.

[391] There is no information to be gained from early accounts as to
what further subdivisions of territory were made or the basis for
them. One could speculate that some aspect of land tenure was based
on the “winter villages”—that is, a certain territory may have been
allotted to the band of co-residence groups who dwelt in adjacent
longhouses during the winter.

[392] Occasional unification of the group under a strong leader
implies that there were also occasions when it was not so unified,
meaning that centralized authority for all Wampanoags as a body was
not institutionalized.

[393] Winslow, pp. 360-61.

[394] During the early years of European settlement at Plymouth a
sachem called Corbitant was dissatisfied with Massasoit’s friendship
with the settlers and plotted to overthrow him.

[395] Winslow, pp. 360-61; Wood, p. 89.

[396] Eliot, p. 139; Gookin, p. 154.

[397] Winslow, pp. 360-61.

[398] Ibid.; Altham, p. 29; Morton, p. 154.

[399] Winslow, pp. 361-62.

[400] Wood, p. 90.

[401] Winslow, p. 362.

[402] Gookin, p. 154; Williams, p. 164; Wood, p. 90.

[403] Winslow, pp. 288, 359-60.

[404] Morton, p. 149; Williams, pp. 152-53.

[405] Ibid.

[406] Possibly the “winter village band” was the group over which
this official exercised authority.

[407] Williams, p. 164.

[408] Winslow, pp. 307-8.

[409] Ibid., pp. 364-65; Williams, p. 166.

[410] Winslow, pp. 307-8.

[411] Ibid., p. 168.

[412] Gookin, p. 149.

[413] Williams, p. 102.

[414] Ibid.

[415] Winslow, pp. 364-65; Wood, p. 90.

[416] Williams, p. 57.

[417] Gookin, p. 149.

[418] Winslow, p. 291; Wood, p. 90.

[419] Winslow, pp. 364-65.

[420] Williams, p. 166.

[421] Winslow, pp. 364-65.

[422] Morton, pp. 153-54.

[423] Williams, p. 102; Winslow, pp. 307-8.

[424] Williams, pp. 58, 68; Winslow, pp. 360-61.

[425] Morton, pp. 170-71. What European observers saw as a “royal
family” was probably a chiefly clan or lineage.

[426] Wood, p. 74.

[427] Williams, p. 163.

[428] Ibid., p. 178.

[429] Massasoit is said to have had five wives; Altham, p. 29; Wood,
p. 91.

[430] Williams, p. 68.

[431] Wood, pp. 77-78.

[432] Ibid.; Williams, pp. 45-46.

[433] Morton, p. 137; Williams, pp. 45-46.

[434] Morton, p. 137; Williams, p. 47.

[435] Wood, pp. 77-78.

[436] Altham, p. 29; Williams, p. 36; Wood, pp. 78-79.

[437] Wood, p. 77.

[438] Winslow, pp. 304-5.

[439] In one case the gift presented was a basket of tobacco and some
beads; Ibid., p. 307.

[440] Wood, p. 91.

[441] Williams, p. 169.

[442] Ibid.

[443] Gookin, p. 149; Winslow, p. 364.

[444] Winslow, p. 364.

[445] Ibid.; Williams, p. 168; Wood, p. 91.

[446] Winslow, p. 364.

[447] Gookin, p. 149; Rowlandson, pp. 45-47.

[448] Ibid.; Wood, p. 91.

[449] Thus enhancing wealth and in turn the possibilities for
displays of generosity.

[450] Williams, pp. 168-69. This practice is fairly common among
pre-literate peoples on a world-wide basis. The reason usually given
is the fear that should the mother conceive again before the child is
weaned, her milk would dry up.

[451] Ibid., p. 34.

[452] Ibid, pp. 170-71; Morton, pp. 145-46; Winslow, p. 358.

[453] Williams, p. 170.

[454] Winslow, p. 358; Wood, p. 108.

[455] Wood, p. 108.

[456] Ibid.; Morton, p. 147.

[457] Wood, p. 108.

[458] Ibid.

[459] Gookin, p. 149; Williams, p. 59.

[460] Williams, p. 169.

[461] Wood, p. 98.

[462] Ibid., pp. 97-98.

[463] Issack de Rasieres, letter to Samuel Blommaert, in NARRATIVES
OF NEW NETHERLANDS, J. Franklin Jameson, ed. (New York, 1909), pp.
113-14.

[464] Winslow, p. 356.

[465] Morton, p. 145; Thomas Shepard, “The Clear Sun-Shine of the
Gospel Breaking Forth upon the Indians in New England”, Massachusetts
Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3, IV (Boston, 1834), p. 40.

[466] De Rasieres, pp. 113-14.

[467] Winslow, pp. 363-64.

[468] “... they train up the most forward and likeliest boys, from
their childhood, in great hardness, and make them abstain from dainty
meat, observing divers orders prescribed, to the end that when they
are of age, the devil may appear to them; causing to drink the juice
of sentry and other bitter herbs, till they cast, which they must
disgorge into the platter, and drink again and again, till at length
through the extraordinary oppressing of nature, it will seem to be
all blood; and this the boys will do with eagerness at the first,
and so continue till by reason of faintness, they can scarce stand
on their legs, and then must go forth into the cold. Also they beat
their shins with sticks, and cause them to run through bushes, stumps
and brambles to make them hardy and acceptable to the devil, that in
time he may appear unto them.”; Ibid., p. 360.

[469] Ibid., pp. 359-60.

[470] Vaughan, pp. 38-39; Willoughby, p. 287; Wood, pp. 94-95.

[471] Willoughby, p. 285 ff., published a collection of important
descriptions of fortifications for the entire New England area.

[472] Williams, p. 99.

[473] Vaughan, p. 39.

[474] Wood, p. 95.

[475] Ibid.

[476] Ibid., p. 89; Vaughan, p. 37; Williams, pp. 201-2.

[477] Rowlandson, pp. 48-49.

[478] Lechford, p. 120; Williams, p. 204; Vaughan, p. 39.

[479] Wood, p. 95.

[480] Williams, p. 204; Vaughan, p. 39.

[481] A skillful conjuror was often called upon to produce such
storms; Winslow, p. 366.

[482] Williams, p. 134.

[483] Ibid., pp. 78-80; Wood, p. 95.

[484] Vaughan, pp. 40-41.

[485] Ibid.

[486] Williams, p. 63.

[487] Ibid.

[488] Winslow, pp. 365-66.

[489] Williams, p. 93.

[490] Winslow, pp. 365-66.

[491] Ibid.; Williams, p. 93.

[492] Winslow, pp. 365-66.

[493] There are reports of the use of sweating to alleviate the
symptoms of the following: “the French disease”, “plague or
smallpox”, “colds, surfeits, sciatica”, “pains fixed in the limbs”;
Butler, pp. 12-13; Williams, pp. 211-12.

[494] Gookin, p. 154; Wood, p. 84.

[495] Wood, p. 84.

[496] Frank G. Speck, “Medicine Practices of the Northeastern
Algonquians,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF
AMERICANISTS (Paris, 1917), p. 303.

[497] Williams, p. 78. There is not a great deal of specific
information on the herbal remedies used by the Wampanoags and their
neighbors. Writing of herbal remedies over the entire Northeastern
Algonquian area, Speck notes that there is variation from area to
area and probably among curers within a single area as to what herb
was used for what symptom.

[498] Gookin, p. 154; Mayhew, letter in “The Light Appearing More
and More Towards the Perfect Day, etc.”, Henry Whitfield, compiler,
Massachusetts Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3 IV (Boston,
1834) p. 202; Williams, pp. 212-13; Winslow, pp. 357-58; Wood, p. 84.

[499] Williams, p. 210; Winslow, pp. 313, 317-18, 362-63.

[500] Williams, pp. 152, 212-13; Winslow, pp. 357-58.

[501] Wood, pp. 92-93.

[502] Mayhew, p. 202; Williams, p. 152; Winslow, pp. 357-58.

[503] Gookin, p. 154.

[504] Ibid.; Mayhew, p. 202; Williams, pp. 212-13; Winslow, pp.
317-18; Wood, pp. 92-93. Gookin says that there were both male and
female powows and that they cured both by magic and by herbal means.
Williams states that the powows administered nothing in the course of
a cure, but proceeded by verbal means only. In none of the reports
that recount the actual actions used by the powow is there any
mention of the use of herbal cures as part of the process.

[505] Williams, pp. 212-13.

[506] Winslow, pp. 362-63.

[507] Ibid., p. 359.

[508] B. Bassett, “Fabulous Traditions and Customs of the Indians of
Martha’s Vineyard,” Massachusetts Historical Society, COLLECTIONS,
Ser. 1, I (Boston, 1792), p. 40.

[509] Williams, p. 210.

[510] Wood, pp. 84-85.

[511] Williams, p. 148.

[512] Ibid., pp. 111, 154; Winslow, p. 356; Wood, pp. 105-6. This
interpretation of Wampanoag religious philosophy may reflect the bias
of European observers conditioned by their own Christian beliefs and
the desire to see parallels to them. In actual fact, Wampanoags seem
to have had a concept of multiple souls, and the fate of all these
was perhaps not the same, considering the fear they had of spirits of
all the dead.

[513] Wood, pp. 104-105.

[514] Ibid.; MOURT’S RELATION, pp. 130-33, 142-43; Williams, pp.
216-18; Willoughby, pp. 233, 237-39, 241-42.

[515] Winslow, p. 363.

[516] Williams, pp. 216-18.

[517] Winslow, p. 363; Morton, pp. 169-170.

[518] Willoughby, p. 233.

[519] Williams, pp. 216-18.

[520] Morton, pp. 170-71.

[521] Ibid.; Wood, p. 104.

[522] Williams, p. 214.

[523] Wood, p. 104.

[524] Morton, p. 133; Winslow, p. 363.

[525] Williams, pp. 216-18. It is likely that considerable of this
display was less of what we would call “grief” than an attempt to
convince the spirit of the deceased not to linger and trouble those
who were close to him in life. Malevolence on the part of spirits of
the dead is a typical northern Algonquian pattern, and abandoning
the house to trick the spirit of a dead relative is a very common
practice in primitive groups throughout the world.

[526] Morton, pp. 170-71; Williams, pp. 71, 214-15; Winslow, p. 362;
Wood, p. 104.

[527] Williams, pp. 214-15.

[528] Winslow, p. 363.

[529] Morton, p. 133; Wood, p. 104.

[530] Morton, p. 133; Williams, pp. 35, 216.

[531] Williams, pp. 214-15.

[532] Ibid., p. 34.

[533] John Elliot and Thomas Mayhew, “Tears of Repentance, etc.,”
Massachusetts Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3, IV (Boston,
1834) p. 202.

[534] Williams, pp. 82, 150.

[535] Ibid., pp. 114, 128; John Elliot, “The Day Breaking, if not
the Sun Rising of the Gospell with the Indians of New England,”
Massachusetts Historical Society, COLLECTIONS, Ser. 3, IV (Boston,
1834), p. 19; Elliot and Mayhew, pp. 186, 202; Winslow, pp. 357-58.

[536] Elliot, “The Day Breaking—,” pp. 16, 19; Mayhew and Elliot, p.
186; Williams, pp. 48-49, 154.

[537] Williams, pp. 149-50.

[538] Elliot and Mayhew, p. 202.

[539] Ibid., pp. 186, 202; Williams, p. 152; Winslow, pp. 357-58.

[540] Williams, pp. 114, 128.

[541] Elliot and Mayhew, p. 202.

[542] Morton, pp. 167-68, Williams, pp. 114, 148-49; Winslow, pp.
355-56.

[543] Williams, p. 111.

[544] Winslow, pp. 355-56; Wood, p. 86.

[545] Williams, pp. 157-58; Winslow, pp. 355-56. Morton, pp. 167-68,
also recounts a creation story, in which the people so anger Kiehtan
that he destroys all that are evil in a flood. Morton’s version
sounds like a re-make of the flood story in Genesis. However, a
common tale in North American Indian mythology involves the existence
of the world in some other state, its destruction and subsequent
transformation into its present form. It is impossible to tell from
the evidence at hand the extent to which the story’s aboriginal
content has been altered through contact with Christian mythology.

[546] Williams, p. 114.

[547] Ibid., p. 148-49; Winslow, pp. 355-56.

[548] Williams, pp. 148-49.

[549] Ibid., p. 151; Winslow, pp. 355-58; Wood, p. 92.

[550] Williams, p. 94.

[551] Ibid, p. 151; Gookin, p. 153; Winslow, pp. 355-56.

[552] Winslow, p. 358-59.

[553] Ibid.

[554] Wood, p. 92.

[555] Williams, pp. 48-49.

[556] Ibid., pp. 34-35.

[557] Ibid.

[558] Ibid., p. 152.

[559] Ibid., pp. 152, 212-13; Winslow, pp. 357-58.

[560] Elliot, “The Day Breaking—,” pp. 19-20.

[561] Morton, pp. 150-52; Winslow, p. 366; Wood, pp. 92-93.

[562] Some of the historical sources and the example of other
Algonquian groups suggest that this power varied in its nature from
one powow to another, depending upon the kind of spirit which gave
it, thus the abilities of powows would vary accordingly as to what
sorts of things they were able to do. This in turn was displayed in
various individualized types of tricks.

[563] Elliot “The Day Breaking—,” pp. 19-20; Elliot and Mayhew, p.
186. As far as can be ascertained, the role of the powow was not
formally hereditary. In practice the office probably remained closely
tied to certain families, if only because association and heredity
stimulated the appropriate dreams in the offspring of those who were
powows.




AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ETHNOGRAPHIC MATERIALS FOR THE PLYMOUTH
AREA


1. Allen, Z. NATIVE INDIANS OF AMERICA (Providence, 1881).

  Quotes standard primary sources and portrays the Indian as the
  “first settler” in the New World; nothing new is presented in the
  way of ethnographic data.

2. Altham, Emmanuel, “Emmanuel Altham to Sir Edward Altham, March
1623/1624; Emmanuel Altham to James Sherley, May, 1624,” letters in
James, THREE VISITORS, etc.

  Relevant information not extensive; concerns general appearance,
  polygyny, distribution of Indian settlements in Plymouth region,
  Massasoit, and Indian guests and their dances on the occasion of
  Bradford’s wedding.

3. Anonymous, “A Description of Mashpee,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 2, Vol. III, 1846.

  A 1767 account of general census and welfare information.

4. Anonymous, “Saconet Indians,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol. X, 1809.

  18th century population records; no ethnographic information.

5. Archer, Gabriel, Archer’s Narrative of the Gosnold Voyage:
(information may be found in H. Howe, PROLOGUE TO NEW ENGLAND).

  Contains a brief description of the general appearance of the
  Nausett Indians in the second year of the 17th. century.

6. Bacon, O. N., A HISTORY OF NATICK (Boston, 1856).

  Mentions the historical context of the praying town; no
  ethnographic information.

7. Badger, Rev. Stephen, “Historical and Characteristic Traits of the
American Indians in General and those of the Natick in Particular,”
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol. V, 1835.

  A report on the condition of the Indians around Natick in 1797.

8. Bartlett, J. R., ed. “Letters of Roger Williams,” PUBLICATIONS OF
THE NARRAGANSETT CLUB, VI, 1874.

  The main relevance of these documents is Anglo-Indian relationships.

9. Bassett, B., “Fabulous Traditions and Customs of the Indians of
Martha’s Vineyard,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS,
Series 1, 1792, pp. 139-40.

  Contains information on 17th. century curing ritual.

10. Bennett, M. K., “The Food Economy of the New England Indians,
1605-1675,” THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, Vol. LXIII, No. 55
(October, 1955) pp. 369-395.

  This paper represents an attempt to work out the daily food
  intake of Indians in southeastern New England in the period
  1605-1675. The information for the 17th. century comes from the
  standard sources—Williams, Morton, Winslow, etc. The attempt at
  quantification in the absence of much quantitative data of any kind
  to work from is interesting. Whether or not it is valid may be open
  to question—probably the guess of an expert is better than anyone
  else’s.

11. Bradford, William, HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH PLANTATION 1620-1647
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. for the Massachusetts Historical
Society), 1912.

  A basic source; data mainly on appearance, food quest, the
  introduction of wampum, and diplomacy.

12. Brereton, John, Narrative of the Gosnold Voyage (in Winship,
SAILORS’ NARRATIVES, also Howe, Prologue to New England).

  Relevant information concerns the Nausett, Wampanoag, and probably
  Narragansett; data on pipes, tobacco, use of copper, use of snakes,
  fire-making, cordage, and location of clay. Voyage made in 1602.

13. Bushnell, D. Jr., “The Sloane Collection in the British Museum,”
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. 8, 1906, pp. 671-685.

  This describes a series of Indian artifacts collected and sent
  back to England in the 17th. century; provides some basic data on
  technology that is not present in other sources.

14. Butler, E. L., “Sweathouses in the Southern New England Area,”
BULLETIN OF THE MASSACHUSETTS ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, Vol. VII,
(October, 1945) pp. 11-15.

  Tabulation of the information, of which there is not a great deal
  for southern New England, on sweat houses and sweating procedure;
  also talks about New York and northern New England for comparison.

15. Byers, D. S., “The Environment of the Northeast,” in “Man in
Northeastern North America,” Frederick Johnson, ed., PAPERS OF THE
ROBERT S. PEABODY FOUNDATION FOR ARCHAEOLOGY, Vol. III (Andover:
Philips Academy) 1946.

  General outline of the environment; information on distribution of
  basic materials and animals used by the Indians.

16. de Champlain, Samuel, Narratives (in Winship, SAILORS’
NARRATIVES, & Howe, PROLOGUE TO NEW ENGLAND)

——also see VOYAGES OF SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN 1604-1618, W. L. Grant,
ed. ORIGINAL NARRATIVES OF EARLY AMERICAN HISTORY (New York; Charles
Scribner’s Sons) 1970

——and THE WORKS OF SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, Vol. I, H. R. Biggar, ed.
(Toronto) 1922

——and others.

  Narrative of visits to the New England coast in the first decade
  of the 17th. century. Relevant information concerns Nausetts and
  Wampanoags—horticulture, food storage, clothing, textiles, housing,
  settlement pattern, general appearance, weapons, living conditions,
  and dugout canoes.

17. Chapin, H.M., “Indian Implements found in Rhode Island,” RHODE
ISLAND HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS, Vol. XVIII, 1924-25.

  A fairly good range of gadgets is shown; illustrations might be
  useful. Gives location of some soapstone quarries. No evidence
  given to support the historic and proto-historic attributions given
  the artifacts.

18. Chapin, H.M., SACHEMS OF THE NARRAGANSETTS (Providence) 1931.

  Historical-biographical data; no ethnographic information.

19. Chase H.E., “Notes on the Wampanoag Indians,” ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION for 1883 (Washington, D.C.: The
Smithsonian Institution).

  Sort of a general 19th. century population survey, together with
  notes of the location of sites and towns in the 17th. and 18th.
  centuries. Quotes the standard sources.

20. Cotton, John, “Vocabulary of the Massachusetts (or Natik)
Indians,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 3,
Vol. II, 1830, pp. 147-257.

  Contains lexical data only; no ethnographic information.

21. Davidson, D.S., “Snowshoes,” AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
MEMOIR #6 (Philadelphia: the American Philosophical Society) 1937.

  All inclusive on the subject of snowshoes in North America. This is
  the only reference there seems to be on the style of snowshoes worn
  by the Wampanoags.

22. Drake, S.G., CHRONICLES OF THE INDIANS (also called OLD INDIAN
CHRONICLE in some editions), (Boston: by the author) 1867.

  Accounts of King Philip’s War, presumably written by
  contemporaries; a chronology of events relating to the Indians. The
  emphasis is historical rather than ethnographic.

23. Drake, S.G., TRAGEDIES OF THE WILDERNESS (also called INDIAN
CAPTIVITIES in later editions), (Boston) 1841.

  Contains the account of Mrs. Rowlandson, who was captured by the
  Wampanoags in the time of King Philip’s War. Evidence of residence
  patterns of polygynous household; also information as to dress at
  that time. Probably best to disregard some things (such as diet) as
  not being typical, since the conditions are not normal—this is a
  group of Indians moving rather rapidly across the landscape much of
  the time, living off what they can carry and pick up along the way.

24. Elliot, John, “An Account of Indian Churches in New England
in a Letter Written A.D. 1673,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol. X, pp. 124-29.

  Concerns the requirements of Indians for church membership and
  their practices as members.

25. Elliot, John “The Day Breaking, if not the Sun Rising of the
Gospell with the Indians of New England,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 3, Vol IV, 1834, pp. 1-23.

  A good account of how shamans are chosen. Recounts the beginnings
  of Elliot’s missionary work—attitude toward conversion of the
  Indians, the things Indians were taught about Christianity, the
  establishment of praying towns, some of the regulations placed upon
  the way of life of would-be-converts.

26. Elliot, John, A GRAMMAR OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INDIAN LANGUAGE, new
edition (Boston) 1822.

  Lexical information; no ethnographic data.

27. Elliot, John, THE INDIAN PRIMER (Edinburgh) 1877.

  Compiled for use in teaching reading and catechism to Indians by
  the 17th century missionary. Contains no ethnographic information.

28. Elliot, John, and Thomas Mayhew, “Tears of Repentance: or, A
Further Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel Amongst the Indians
in New England,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series
3, Vol. IV, 1834.

  Letters dating ca. 1653; information concerning aboriginal
  religious beliefs and the way of becoming a powow.

29. Ellis, G.E., “The Indians of Eastern Massachusetts,” MEMORIAL
HISTORY OF BOSTON, J. Winsor, ed., Vol I. (Boston) 1880, pp. 241-71.

  Deals with the history of Anglo-Indian relationships. Not much
  ethnographic information.

30. Flannery, R., AN ANALYSIS OF COASTAL ALGONQUIAN CULTURE
(Washington, D. C.; The Catholic University of America Press) 1939.

  Trait list for southern New England; very complete, but the
  inclusion of tribes other than those in the immediate Plymouth
  region—i.e. Connecticut—calls for cross checking before accepting
  all things as true of local Indians.

31. Freeman, Frederick, CIVILIZATION AND BARBARISM, (Cambridge: The
Riverside Press) 1878.

  Running account of relations between Indians and white men from
  1620 to the end of King Philip’s War. Ethnographic information
  is nonexistent; however, a general picture of Indian-English
  relationships as they unfolded can be gained.

32. Gookin, Daniel, “Historical Collections of the Indians in New
England,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol
I, 1792.

  This is a basic source, covering all aspects of Indian culture.
  Concerns mainly the Massachusetts.

33. Guernsey, S.J., “Notes on the Exploration of Martha’s Vineyard,”
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns. Vol. XVIII, 1916, pp. 81-97.

  Discusses the investigation of some burials and the collection
  of some typical artifacts (cord and fabric-impressed and incised
  sherds).

34. Hawley, G., “Mashpee Indians,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol. X, 1809, p. 113.

  Contains 18th. century population records.

35. Hawley, Rev. Mr., “Account of an Indian Visitation, A.D. 1698,”
MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 1, Vol. X, 1809,
p. 129.

  Concerns the location and religious conditions of various Indian
  congregations of 1698.

36. Haynes, H. W., “Agricultural Implements of the New England
Indians,” PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY, Vol.
XXII, 1883, pp. 437-43.

  Discusses shell and stone hoes and spades that might have been used
  by the Indians in historic times. Information it contains is better
  gotten in entirety from original sources than piecemeal here.

37. Higginson, F., “New England’s Plantation,” MASSACHUSETTS
HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 1, 1806, pp. 117-24.

  Brief ethnographic sketch, dealing with appearance, weapons,
  houses, seasonal mobility, religion, and labor.

38. Howe, Henry F. PROLOGUE TO NEW ENGLAND (New York, Toronto: Farr
and Rinehart, Inc.) 1943.

  This book covers the voyages of exploration and the accounts
  of them from the Vikings to the Pilgrims. The author provides
  continuity and explanatory passages, but there are extensive
  quotations from original sources, making this an excellent source
  for such journalists as Verrazano, Champlain, and Smith; most
  writings by them relevant to the Indians of this area are included.

39. James, Sydney V., Jr., ed., THREE VISITORS TO EARLY PLYMOUTH
(Plimoth Plantation) 1963.

  Contains the accounts of John Pory, Emmanuel Altham, and Issack de
  Rasieres.

40. Josselyn, John, “New England’s Rarities Discovered,” TRANSACTIONS
AND COLLECTIONS OF THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, IV., 1860, pp.
130-238.

  Main concern is the natural history of the region, but there is a
  description of the dress (acculturated), ornament, and hairstyle of
  an “Indian Squa”.

41. Josselyn, John, “Two Voyages to New England,” MASSACHUSETTS
HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 3, Vol. III, 1833.

  Information on Indian culture not extensive; relevant information
  covers material for bows and fire-making.

42. Kitteredge, G.L., “Letters of Samuel Lee and Samuell Sewell
Relating to New England and the Indians,” PUBLICATIONS OF THE
COLONIAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS XV, 1912, pp. 142-86.

  The letters consist of a series of answers to questions about
  Indian culture. Unfortunately there is no existing list of the
  questions. Subjects covered are mainly appearance, matters of
  health, cures, hygiene, and child care. In many cases the questions
  asked can be guessed, and the author’s notes as to other primary
  sources on similar subjects are useful. There is no information
  not already covered in other standard primary sources, but the
  information here nicely confirms other writers’ observations. The
  time of writing is about 1690. The Indian group of main concern is
  the Narragansett.

43. Knight, M.F., “Wampanoag Indian Tales,” JOURNAL OF AMERICAN
FOLKLORE, Vol. XXXVIII, 1925, pp. 134-7.

  Information is 19th. and 20th. century; influences of acculturation
  are obvious.

44. Leach, Douglas Edward, FLINTLOCK AND TOMAHAWK: NEW ENGLAND IN
KING PHILIP’S WAR (New York: The Macmillan Company) 1959.

  Contains a brief introductory sketch of Indian culture. Population
  subsistence, houses, physical appearance, division of labor, etc.
  are treated generally.

45. Lechford, T., PLAIN DEALING OR NEWS FROM NEW ENGLAND, J.H.
Trumbull, ed., (Boston: J. K. Wiggin & William Parsons Lunt) 1868.

——also MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 3, Vol.
III, 1833.

  Originally published in 1642, this work does not contain a great
  deal of information about Indian culture. Relevant passages concern
  hairdressing, ornament, fire-making, weapons, and government.

46. Macy, Zaccheus, “A Short Journal of the First Settlement of the
Island of Nantucket,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS,
Series 1, Vol. III, 1794, pp. 155-60.

  Description of settlement of the island in 1659 speaks briefly
  of the Indians as kind and hospitable people. Gives population
  figures in 1763 (358) prior to an epidemic in the same year that
  substantially eradicated that population.

47. Miller, W.J., NOTES CONCERNING THE WAMPANOAG TRIBE OF INDIANS
(Providence) 1880.

  Concerns the history of English dealings with the tribe; no
  ethnographic data.

48. Mooney, James, “The Aboriginal Population of America North of
Mexico,” SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, Vol. LXXX, no. 7,
(February, 1928).

  Gives estimate of population for the area. Presumably this is based
  on historical sources rather than any formula, although he does not
  say how the figures were arrived at.

49. Mooney, J., “Handbook of American Indians,” BULLETIN OF THE
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, XXX, Vols. I and II, 1910, pp. 810
(vol. I), 903-4 (vol. II).

  For the Wampanoag there is a brief description concerning matters
  of history, linguistics, and population. There is also a list of
  town names.

50. Morton, Thomas, THE NEW ENGLISH CANAAN, (Boston: The Prince
Society) 1883.

  This work, originally published in 1637, is a basic source for the
  study of both early colonists and Indians; covers all aspects of
  Indian culture. The tribe being described is the Massachusett.

51. MOURT’S RELATION (in Young CHRONICLES OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS,
etc.)

  Originally published in 1622, this is a basic source for Wampanoag
  culture in all aspects; also contains the accounts of earliest
  Pilgrim dealings with the Indians.

52. Murdock, George Peter, ETHNOGRAPHIC BIBLIOGRAPHY OF NORTH
AMERICA, 2nd. Edition (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files) 1953.

  Contains a list of all published sources on North American Indians
  through 1953. All sources that are relevant to the Plymouth area
  are included in the present list.

53. Pory, John, JOHN PORY’S LOST DESCRIPTION OF PLYMOUTH (Boston and
New York: Houghton Mifflin Company) 1918.

——also in James, THREE VISITORS, etc.

  Description of Indians is brief and relates mostly to
  interrelationships with English—trade, hostilities, etc. What
  comments there are on culture also pertain to Indians outside the
  Plymouth area; no information is included that is not gotten better
  from other sources.

54. Potter, E.R., “Early History of Narragansetts,” COLLECTIONS OF
THE RHODE ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, Vol. III (Providence: Marshall
Brown, and Company) 1835.

  A compilation of historical data on the Narragansetts. The main
  ethnographic source is Williams. There is considerable data on
  Indian-colonial dealings from town records.

55. Prince, J.D., “The Last Living Echoes of the Natick,” AMERICAN
ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. IX, 1907, pp. 493-98.

  Concerns a few remaining Indians during the early 20th. century,
  living in Mashpee on Cape Cod; the recollections of old people.
  There is also some collected vocabulary.

56. Pring, Martin, “The Voyage of Martin Pring,” (in Winship)
SAILORS’ NARRATIVES also Howe, PROLOGUE TO NEW ENGLAND.

  Account by an early (1603) visitor to Plymouth harbor. Information
  on general appearance, horticulture, diet, weapons, and birch bark
  canoes.

57. Rainey, F.G., “A Compilation of Historical Data Contributing to
the Ethnography of Connecticut and Southern New England Indians,”
BULLETIN OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF CONNECTICUT (April, 1936).

  This is just what the title implies—a collection of some data on
  Indians in southeastern New England. The author assumes that all
  groups are the same culture-wise, and makes no attempt to segregate
  data, for example, of observers in Maine from that of those in
  Connecticut. The compilation, moreover, is incomplete. No synthesis
  is attempted—information presented in a series of quotations.

58. de Rasieres, Issack, “Letter of Issack de Rasieres to Samuel
Blommaert, 1628,” in James, THREE VISITORS, etc., and also Jameson,
Franklin, J., ed., NARRATIVES OF NEW NETHERLAND (New York, Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1909).

  Information concerning trade with Maine, conduct of the Indians,
  education of the young, and male initiation. Also extensive
  account of customs of New York Indians.

59. Shepard, Thomas, “The Clear Sun-Shine of the Gospel Breaking
forth upon the Indians in New England,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL
SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series 3, Vol. IV, pp. 27-67.

  Mainly a description of missionary activities, dating to about
  1648. There is little ethnographic information; mainly it tells of
  the efforts of religious instruction. Mentions the existence of
  female initiation.

60. Smith, John, A DESCRIPTION OF NEW ENGLAND, OR OBSERVATIONS AND
DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTH OF AMERICA IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1614
(Boston: Williams Veazie) 1875.

  Information on Indians is not extensive. Concerns general
  distribution of settlements, location of furs, and horticulture
  around Massachusetts Bay.

61. Speck, F.G., “Medicine Practices of the Northeastern
Algonquians,” INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICANISTS, XIX, 1917, pp.
303-21.

  Ethnographic information concerns Montagnais, Mohegan,
  Penobscott—mostly remedy lists, which, since they tend to
  be specific at least to tribe are not much help except as
  illustrations of the kinds of things used in the general area.
  Theory contained therein is relevant to all Algonquians, however,
  and should be read by anyone studying in this area.

62. Speck, F.G., “Mythology of the Wampanoag,” EL PALACIO, Vol. XXV,
1928, pp. 83-6.

  Acculturated, 19th. century information.

63. Speck, F.G., “Territorial Subdivisions and Boundaries of the
Wampanoag, Massachusetts, and Nauset Indians,” INDIAN NOTES AND
MONOGRAPHS, no. 44, (Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation).

  Data on tribal subdivisions is compiled, and most of it relates to
  about the time of King Philip’s War. Also genealogical data.

64. Speck, F.G., and Ralph Dexter, “Utilization of Marine Life by
the Wampanoag Indians of Massachusetts,” JOURNAL OF THE WASHINGTON
ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, Vol. XXXVIII, 1948, pp. 257-65.

  Information in regard to contemporary practices of the Wampanoag of
  Gay Head, Martha’s Vineyard, on use of sea products for food and
  other purposes.

65. Tantaquidgeon, G., “Notes on the Gay Head Indians of
Massachusetts,” INDIAN NOTES, Vol. 7, no. 1 (Museum of the American
Indian, Heye Foundation) January, 1930.

  Concerns 19th. century splint and grass basketry-making; describes
  some techniques of manufacture.

66. Thatcher, James, HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF PLYMOUTH, FROM ITS FIRST
SETTLEMENT IN 1620, TO THE PRESENT TIME: WITH A CONCISE HISTORY OF
THE ABORIGINES OF NEW ENGLAND AND THEIR WARS WITH THE ENGLISH, &C.
(Boston: Marsh, Capen & Lyon) 1835.

  Brief cultural summary includes diet, division of labor,
  appearance, housing, attitude toward children, effects of strong
  drink, treatment of captives, and the general character of Indians.
  For its brevity it is quite complete, albeit non-analytical.
  Includes history of Indian-Pilgrim contacts. Covers King Philip’s
  War. Includes Indian anecdotes and sketches of character and
  activities of some of the more well-known Indians of the 17th.
  century.

67. Trumbull, J.H., “Natick Dictionary,” BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF
AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY, XXV, 1903.

  Linguistic material. No ethnographic data.

68. Vaughan, Alden T., NEW ENGLAND FRONTIER: PURITANS AND INDIANS
1620-1675 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company) 1965.

  This is a history of relations between Indians and colonists, taken
  from the point of view of the colonists. The section relevant to a
  study of Wampanoag culture is the introductory chapter on general
  Algonquian culture for the New England area. A most articulate and
  applicable summary, it is basic reading for a general background in
  Indian culture of the region.

69. Verrazano’s Narrative (contained in H. Howe, PROLOGUE TO NEW
ENGLAND).

  This narrative represents the first account of contact with
  Algonquians of the Plymouth region—area concerned is Narragansett
  Bay, date is 1524. Information on general appearance and notation
  of dwellings that do not fit the expected pattern for wigwam
  construction.

70. Whitfield, Henry, compiler, “The Light Appearing More and More
Towards the Perfect day or, A Farther Discovery of the Present State
of the Indians in New England, Concerning the Progresse of the Gospel
Amongst Them,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS, Series
3, Vol. IV.

  Contains letters by John Eliot dating about 1651, with information
  on becoming a powow, dreams, and the succession of powows.

71. Wilder, H.H., “Notes on the Indians of Southern Massachusetts,”
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. XXV, 1923, pp. 197-218.

  This contains some information on the excavation of burials, plus
  an attempt at reconstruction of how the face of an Indian might
  have looked, based upon skeletal features.

72. Williams, Roger, A KEY INTO THE LANGUAGE OF AMERICA: OR AN HELP
TO THE LANGUAGE OF THE NATIVES IN THAT PART OF AMERICA, CALLED NEW
ENGLAND (Providence: The Narragansett Club) Vol. 1, Ser. 1, 1866.

  Originally published in 1643, this is a basic source on all aspects
  of Indian culture. Concern is mainly with the Narragansetts.

73. Willoughby, C. C., “The Adze and the Ungrooved Axe of the New
England Indians,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns. Vol. IX, 1907, pp.
296-306.

  Contains both historic and prehistoric data. Same material is found
  in Willoughby, 1935. Perhaps useful in separating historic and
  prehistoric forms.

74. Willoughby, Charles C., ANTIQUITIES OF THE NEW ENGLAND INDIANS
(Cambridge: the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology,
Harvard University) 1935.

  The area covered here is the entirety of New England, so caution
  must be exercised in selecting information to avoid bringing in
  details not applicable to the Plymouth area. The relevant section
  is that called, “The Later Algonquian Group”. Information covers
  textiles, wooden dishes, shell beads, and burials and grave
  goods. The sub-section on “General Culture of the Historic New
  England Tribes”, has both relevant and irrelevant information—the
  discussions of wampum and fortifications are worthy of note. The
  archaeology contained in the rest of the book seems rather out of
  date, and the conclusions as to the source of copper are wrong.
  Illustrations that pertain to historic artifacts are worth looking
  at. This book has the advantage of being the major and last of the
  author’s works concerning the New England area, and information
  contained in earlier articles (of which there are several) can be
  found here.

75. Willoughby, C. C., “Certain Earthworks of Eastern Massachusetts,”
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. XIII, 1911, pp. 566-76.

  The information also appears in Willoughby, 1935, where the author
  has revised his thinking on the nature of some of the earthworks;
  that source, therefore is better consulted than this.

76. Willoughby, C. C., “Dress and Ornaments of the New England
Indians,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. VII, 1905, pp. 499-508.

  All information is covered in Willoughby, 1935.

77. Willoughby, C. C., “Houses and Gardens of the New England
Indians,” AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., VIII, 1906, pp. 115-32.

  All information covered in Willoughby, 1935.

78. Willoughby, Charles C., “The Wilderness and the Indian,” in
COMMONWEALTH HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS, Albert Bushnell Hart, ed. (New
York: The States History Company) Vol. I, 1927-28, pp. 127-57.

  A general summary of New England Indian culture, which is better
  done in the book by Vaughan.

79. Willoughby, C. C., “Wooden Bowls of the Algonquian Indians,”
AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, ns., Vol. X, 1908, pp. 423-34.

  Illustrations are interesting for general types, however, objects
  relevant to the Plymouth area are also illustrated in Willoughby,
  1935.

80. Winship, George Parker, ed., SAILORS’ NARRATIVE OF VOYAGES ALONG
THE NEW ENGLAND COAST 1524-1624 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Company)
1905.

  This book is a collection of early narratives. Especially relevant
  are the accounts of Samuel de Champlain, Martin Pring, and John
  Brereton; all are basic sources.

81. Winslow, Edward, “The Glorious Progress of the Gospel Amongst
the Indians in New England,” MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY
COLLECTIONS, Series 3, Vol. IV, 1834, pp. 69-99.

  Originally compiled in 1649, this contains a letter by Eliot,
  concerning spring congregations at fishing places.

82. Winslow, Edward, “Good Newes from New England: or A true
Relation of things very Remarkable at the Plantation of Plimoth in
New-England,” (in Young, CHRONICLES OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS, etc.)

  Originally published in 1624, this is one of the basic sources on
  all aspects of Indian culture; the observations are most insightful.

83. Wood, William, NEW ENGLAND’S PROSPECT, Charles Deane, ed.
(Boston: The Prince Society), 1865.

  A basic source on all aspects of Indian culture. Concern is mainly
  with the Massachusett.

84. Young, Alexander, CHRONICLES OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS OF THE COLONY
OF PLYMOUTH FROM 1602-1625 (Boston: Charles C. Little and James
Brown), 1841.

  Contains MOURT’S RELATION and Winslow’s Relation (“Good Newes from
  New England” etc.).




  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

  Notes 32, 58, 323 and 324 each have two anchors in the text.

  Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
  corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
  the text and consultation of external sources.

  Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
  when a predominant preference was found in the original book.

  Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
  and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.

  Main text:
  Pg 1: ‘FORWARD’ replaced by ‘FOREWORD’.
  Pg 1: ‘undoubtely much’ replaced by ‘undoubtedly much’.
  Pg 2: ‘anthropoligists were’ replaced by ‘anthropologists were’.
  Pg 2: the third line ‘valuable sources for scholars undertaking such
  studies.’ was misplaced and has been deleted. It is placed,
  correctly, in a later paragraph.
  Pg 2: ‘anthropoligists who’ replaced by ‘anthropologists who’.
  Pg 2: ‘Altantic Coast’ replaced by ‘Atlantic Coast’.
  Pg 2: ‘Massasoit, Hobamock’ replaced by ‘Massasoit, Hobomock’.
  Pg 3: ‘from Pautxet was’ replaced by ‘from Patuxet was’.
  Pg 3: ‘normal proceedure’ replaced by ‘normal procedure’.
  Pg 3: ‘is a phenonmenon’ replaced by ‘is a phenomenon’.
  Pg 3: ‘all liklihood’ replaced by ‘all likelihood’.
  Pg 3: ‘of the seventheenth’ replaced by ‘of the seventeenth’.
  Pg 4: ‘seventeeneh century’ replaced by ‘seventeenth century’.
  Pg 4: anchor [20] was missing and has been inserted after ‘bowls
  and drinking cups.’.
  Pg 4: ‘for the maintainence’ replaced by ‘for the maintenance’.
  Pg 5: ‘androgenous fish’ replaced by ‘androgynous fish’.
  Pg 5: ‘currants, chesnuts’ replaced by ‘currants, chestnuts’.
  Pg 6: ‘tred them out’ replaced by ‘tread them out’.
  Pg 7: ‘kernals were dried’ replaced by ‘kernels were dried’.
  Pg 7: ‘seive to catch’ replaced by ‘sieve to catch’.
  Pg 7: ‘bitter tanic acid’ replaced by ‘bitter tannic acid’.
  Pg 8: ‘the prefered diet’ replaced by ‘the preferred diet’.
  Pg 9: ‘bullrushes, bent grass’ replaced by ‘bulrushes, bent grass’.
  Pg 9: ‘arrow quivver’ replaced by ‘arrow quiver’.
  Pg 10: ‘was usualy worn’ replaced by ‘was usually worn’.
  Pg 10: ‘prefered material’ replaced by ‘preferred material’.
  Pg 11: ‘There were undoubtely’ replaced by ‘There were undoubtedly’.
  Pg 11: ‘one writer, dying’ replaced by ‘one writer, dyeing’.
  Pg 11: ‘otherwise interwined’ replaced by ‘otherwise intertwined’.
  Pg 11: ‘Neverless, by’ replaced by ‘Nevertheless, by’.
  Pg 12: ‘locally occuring’ replaced by ‘locally occurring’.
  Pg 12: ‘similar proceedure’ replaced by ‘similar procedure’.
  Pg 12: ‘with rozen from’ replaced by ‘with rosin from’.
  Pg 12: ‘Other Manufacturers’ replaced by ‘Other Manufactures’.
  Pg 13: ‘part nonexistant’ replaced by ‘part nonexistent’.
  Pg 13: ‘AND MAINTAINENCE’ replaced by ‘AND MAINTENANCE’.
  Pg 14: ‘virtually nonexistant’ replaced by ‘virtually nonexistent’.
  Pg 14, 15, 16: ‘costal’ replaced by ‘coastal’ (seven occurrences).
  Pg 14: ‘naturally occuring’ replaced by ‘naturally occurring’.
  Pg 14: ‘had occured,’ replaced by ‘had occurred,’.
  Pg 16: ‘encumberance on the’ replaced by ‘encumbrance on the’.
  Pg 16: ‘for sustainence and’ replaced by ‘for sustenance and’.
  Pg 16: ‘wthout using’ replaced by ‘without using’.
  Pg 16: ‘for posession of’ replaced by ‘for possession of’.
  Pg 16: ‘a solem affair’ replaced by ‘a solemn affair’.
  Pg 17: ‘of their possesions’ replaced by ‘of their possessions’.
  Pg 17: ‘or propitation of’ replaced by ‘or propitiation of’.
  Pg 17: ‘he alloted certain’ replaced by ‘he allotted certain’.
  Pg 17: ‘costal promentories’ replaced by ‘coastal promontories’.
  Pg 18: anchor [398] was missing and has been inserted after ‘those
  of his subjects.’.
  Pg 18: ‘govermental sphere’ replaced by ‘governmental sphere’.
  Pg 18: ‘settling dispututes’ replaced by ‘settling disputes’.
  Pg 18: ‘regular proceedure’ replaced by ‘regular procedure’.
  Pg 18: ‘special mesengers’ replaced by ‘special messengers’.
  Pg 19: ‘as the preceeding’ replaced by ‘as the preceding’.
  Pg 19: ‘emmisaries were sent’ replaced by ‘emissaries were sent’.
  Pg 19: ‘the doner thus’ replaced by ‘the donor thus’.
  Pg 19: ‘The host greatfully’ replaced by ‘The host gratefully’.
  Pg 19: ‘solemenized by the’ replaced by ‘solemnized by the’.
  Pg 21: ‘on its circumfrence’ replaced by ‘on its circumference’.
  Pg 21: ‘and Accouterment’ replaced by ‘and Accoutrement’.
  Pg 22: ‘terminated be a dash’ replaced by ‘terminated by a dash’.
  Pg 22: ‘both theraputic’ replaced by ‘both therapeutic’.
  Pg 22: ‘their therauptic’ replaced by ‘their therapeutic’.
  Pg 22: ‘curing proceedure’ replaced by ‘curing procedure’.
  Pg 22: ‘division occured’ replaced by ‘division occurred’.
  Pg 22: ‘contageous disease’ replaced by ‘contagious disease’.
  Pg 22: ‘Hazzards were’ replaced by ‘Hazards were’.
  Pg 22: ‘equipmnt of life’ replaced by ‘equipment of life’.
  Pg 22: ‘treasurers and put’ replaced by ‘treasures and put’.
  Pg 23: ‘death had occured’ replaced by ‘death had occurred’.
  Pg 23: ‘of the kind’ replaced by ‘or the kind’.
  Pg 23: anchor [359] replaced by [539].
  Pg 23: ‘kernal of corn’ replaced by ‘kernel of corn’.
  Pg 24: ‘to dispell any’ replaced by ‘to dispel any’.
  Pg 26: ‘QUIVVER’ replaced by ‘QUIVER’.
  Pg 26: ‘of the quivver’ replaced by ‘of the quiver’.
  Pg 26: ‘TOMMAHAWK’ replaced by ‘TOMAHAWK’.
  Pg 26: ‘p. 102; p. 58;’ replaced by ‘p. 102; Pring, p. 58;’.

  Notes:
  No. 6: ‘AND TOMAHAWAK’ replaced by ‘AND TOMAHAWK’.
  62: ‘is reperesentative’ replaced by ‘is representative’.
  87: ‘their livlihood’ replaced by ‘their livelihood’.
  87: ‘costal farming’ replaced by ‘coastal farming’.
  87: ‘Probably horiculture’ replaced by ‘Probably horticulture’.
  119: ‘a farily heavy’ replaced by ‘a fairly heavy’.
  322: ‘village of Pautuxet’ replaced by ‘village of Patuxet’.
  326: ‘Bereton in Howe’ replaced by ‘Brereton in Howe’.
  391: ‘have been alloted’ replaced by ‘have been allotted’.
  445: ‘Wood, 91.’ replaced by ‘Wood, p. 91.’.
  493: ‘the sympotms of’ replaced by ‘the symptoms of’.
  512: ‘pp. 105-5’ replaced by ‘pp. 105-6’.

  Bibliography:
  No. 8: ‘main revelance of’ replaced by ‘main relevance of’.
  15: ‘FOR ARCHAELOGY’ replaced by ‘FOR ARCHAEOLOGY’.
  30: ‘COSTAL ALGONQUIAN’ replaced by ‘COASTAL ALGONQUIAN’.
  43: ‘AMERICAN FOLKORE’ replaced by ‘AMERICAN FOLKLORE’.
  44: ‘AND TOMAHAWAK’ replaced by ‘AND TOMAHAWK’.
  49: ‘history, linquistics’ replaced by ‘history, linguistics’.
  57: ‘to seggregate data’ replaced by ‘to segregate data’.
  70: ‘Henry Whitfeld’ replaced by ‘Henry Whitfield’.
  74: ‘the entirity of’ replaced by ‘the entirety of’.





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