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