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 weavingB; 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.