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.

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