USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 1 > Part 15
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THE WILDERNESS AND THE INDIAN
however, steadily increased, and as it became known among the inland tribes the English could with difficulty obtain enough to supply the demand "for many years together."
The purple portion of the quahog shell (Venus mercenaria) was used for making the colored variety of wampum. Much of the later white wampum seems to have been made from the white part of the same shell. The columella of the periwinkle was also used for making the white variety.
Besides its use as currency, wampum was woven into gar- ters, belts, bracelets, collars, ear pendants, neck ornaments, head bands, etc. It was used for ornamenting bags, wallets, and various articles of dress. The wampum belts, woven of purple and white beads in symbolic figures, served as an in- violable and sacred pledge which guaranteed messages, prom- ises, and treaties.
GARDENS AND FIELDS (1620-1675)
Agriculture was the mainstay of the tribes of this common- wealth. Each family had its well-cultivated garden wherein were usually grown corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, arti- chokes, and tobacco. According to Williams: "The women of a Family will commonly raise two or three heaps [of corn] of twelve, fifteene, or twentie bushells a heap, which they drie in round broad heaps; and if she have helpe of her children or friends, much more."
Therefore, a family would usually raise twenty-four to sixty bushels of unshelled corn. This apparently does not in- clude the amount of green corn consumed, which was con- siderable. Judging by the average yield of the ordinary field of the New England farmer of today, which is but a repro- duction of an Indian garden, and taking into consideration the somewhat larger yield of modern varieties of corn, it seems probable that the amount of land ordinarily under culti- vation by a single Indian family would be from half an acre to about one and a half acres; or, in other words, a plot of ground one hundred and fifty feet to two hundred and fifty feet square. This estimate is corroborated by Gookin, who says the Indian fields at Wabquissit yielded forty bushels of corn to the acre.
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AGRICULTURE
The Indians taught the colonists their native agriculture- "to cull out the finest seede, to observe fittest season, to keep distance for holes, and fit measure for hills, to worme it, and weed it; to prune it and dress it as occasion shall require." Wood also says that the Indians exceed the English husband- men in the care of their fields, keeping them clear with their clamshell hoes, not suffering a weed to "advance his audacious head above their infant corn, or an undermining worm to spoile his spurnes."
When a field was to be broken up they had a "loving so- ciable speedy way to despatch it; all the neighbors men and women, fortie, fiftie, &c. joyne and came in to helpe freely." In preparing new land the trees were cut off about three feet from the ground and the branches piled against the trunk and burned. Corn was planted between the stumps and in course of time the stumps and roots were torn up.
Each family had its garden, which was usually near the summer cabin, although sometimes a family had gardens a mile or two or several miles apart, and when the work of one field was over they would remove their cabin to the other. In many places along the Massachusetts coast, Champlain saw well-kept gardens with their accompanying cabins. He describes Nauset Harbor as three or four leagues in circuit "entirely surrounded by little houses around each one of which there was as much land as the occupant needed for his support."
AGRICULTURE (1620-1675)
Planting time arrived when the leaves of the white oak were as large as a mouse's ear. On land already cleared the weeds were burned and the ground worked over with instru- ments of very hard wood shaped like a spade. The hills were three feet apart, and in each one were placed three or four kernels of corn and as many beans, and the earth heaped up with the shell of the horseshoe crab. Hoes of stone, wood, and clam-shell are also recorded. The Indians of the western portion of the state employed for this purpose an implement made of the shoulder-blade of a bear, moose, or deer, fastened to a wooden handle. Two or three herring or shad were placed in the hill as a fertilizer. It was the women's work to
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plant and cultivate the gardens and gather the crops; "yet sometimes the man himself (either out of love for his Wife or care for his Children, or being an old man)" will assist.
Great care was exercised to keep the ground free from weeds and to protect the young plants from the depredations of birds. Watch-houses were erected for the latter purpose.
The corn (Zea mays) grown in the gardens of the New England Indians was of several varieties, the colors being red, blue, yellow, and white. The modern improved varieties dif- fer but little from these earlier kinds. The bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) was also of different colors and varities. Josselyn writes: "They are variegated much, some being bigger a great deal than others; some white, black, red, yellow, blew, spotted." This is the common field and garden bean of the New England farmers.
The pumpkin (Cucurbita maxima) and the squash (asquta- squash or isquontersquash: Cucurbita polymorphia) were raised throughout Massachusetts. In nearly all of the old- fashioned fields of the present day these vegetables are grown in the same hill with the corn, and it is probable that they were thus planted in the Indian gardens.
The cultivation of the artichoke (Helianthus tuberosus) was adopted from the Indians by the colonists. Its roots were used by the natives as an ingredient in stews. Champlain found it cultivated at Nauset Harbor in 1605, and at Glou- cester in 1606. Tobacco was a smaller and more hardy spe- cies than that now grown in warmer climates. This was commonly the only plant cultivated by the men.
The corn was harvested by the women and thoroughly dried on mats, care being taken to cover it at night with other mats and to uncover it when the sun was shining. When thor- oughly dry it was usually stored in caches, although it was sometimes placed in baskets or in wooden receptacles about three feet high made by cutting hollow logs into sections, and stored in the wigwam.
Morton writes: "Their barnes are holes made in the earth, that will hold a Hogshead of corne a peece in them. In these (when their corne is out of the huske and well dried) they lay their store in greate baskets which they make of Sparke with
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FOOD IN GENERAL
mats under about the sides, and on the top; and putting it into the place made for it, they cover it with earth."
The Pilgrims opened a cache at Cape Cod, being attracted by the heap of sand. In it they found "A little old Basket full of faire Indian Corne, and digged further & found a fine great new Basket full of very faire corne of this yeare, with some 36 goodly eares of corne, some yellow and some red, and others mixt with blew which was a very goodly sight; the Basket was round, and narrow at the top, it held about three or four Bushels, which was as much as two of us could lift up from the ground, and was very handsomely and cunningly made." These old cache holes are still found in many sections of this commonwealth where the land has not been cultivated.
Green corn was a favorite food, and for the purpose of pro- curing this for as long a season as possible there was a second planting. It was usually prepared by roasting or boiling. The later crop, if not ripe when harvested, was boiled on the ear, shelled, and carefully dried on mats or bark. Thus pre- pared it would keep indefinitely. The crop of ripe corn was husked, and also dried before storing.
FOOD IN GENERAL (1620-1675)
Various preparations were made from maize. Nokake, one of the most valued, consisted of kernels parched in hot ashes and ground. This was especially useful in travelling, it be- ing carried in a basket or hollow girdle, or in a long leather bag at the back. A few spoonfuls with a little water were sufficient for a meal. They also prepared a sort of pottage of unparched meal. Hulled corn and hominy were made from whole or cracked corn, the hulls being removed by steeping in lye made from wood ashes. The kernels thus prepared were boiled until soft. Succotash was a mixture of corn and beans boiled.
Gookin says: "Their food is generally boiled maize, or In- dian corn, mixed with kidney beans, or sometimes without. Also they frequently boil with this pottage fish and flesh of all sorts, either new taken or dried also they mix with the said pottage several sorts of roots and pum-
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pions, and squashes, and also several sorts of nuts or masts as oak acorns, chestnuts, walnuts: these husked and dried, and powdered they thicken their pottage therewith."
Cakes or round loaves made of corn meal were wrapped in leaves and baked in hot ashes. Crushed strawberries or other berries were often mixed with the dough. Another meal, used principally to thicken stews was made from acorns of the white oak, the bitter principle being removed by boiling in lye made from ashes of rotten maple wood. During this process a clear and sweet oil rose to the surface which was skimmed off and preserved in bladders. This was eaten with meat and was also used for anointing.
Another valued food oil was prepared from hickory nuts. These, shells and all, were crushed between stones and mixed with water, the oil which rose to the surface being preserved in suitable receptacles. Crushed hickory nuts were also used for thickening stews. Chestnuts were gathered, dried, and preserved for a "dainty" throughout the year.
Of the various roots used for food, the most important seems to have been the ground nut ( Apios tuberosa) a climb- ing perennial herb with fragrant purple-brown flowers, com- mon in moist thickets. It bears at intervals upon its thread- like roots numerous tubers about the size of a hen's egg. The farinacious roots of the common yellow waterlily were boiled and eaten.
All edible berries were gathered, and certain kinds such as wild currants and blueberries were dried upon mats in the sun, and preserved for winter consumption. Josselyn writes that dried blueberries were sold to the colonists by the bushel.
Nearly all the larger mammals of New England were used for food. "Their spits were no other than cloven sticks sharp- ened at one end to thrust into the ground. Into these cloven stickes they thrust the flesh or fish they would have roasted, beheming a round fire with a dozen sticks at a time, turning them as they see occasion."
Meat was preserved for a considerable time by cutting in strips and drying in the smoke. Moose tongues were pre- served by smoking and were considered a great delicacy. Fish was dried upon scaffolds over a fire. Lobsters were preserved in like manner. Wood writes: "They drie [lobsters] to
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HUNTING, TRAPPING, FISHING
keepe for Winter, erecting scaffolds in the hot sunshine, mak- ing fire likewise underneath them by whoes smoake the flies are expelled, till the substance remain hard and drie. In this manner they drie Basse and other fishes without salt, cutting them very thinne to drie suddainly, before the flies spoil them, or the rain moist them, having a special care to hang them in their smoakie houses in the night and dankish weather."
Oysters were also dried for future use. Williams writes that the Indians generally over the country delight in clams. In the winter and summer at low water the women dig for them. "These they boil and it makes their broth and their bread seasonable and savory instead of salt."
HUNTING, TRAPPING, AND FISHING (1620-1675)
The Indians were expert hunters, trappers, and fishermen. Extensive deer drives were organized in which a hundred or more Indians took part. V-shaped fences were sometimes built a mile or more in length, to guide the deer to a narrow opening where they were shot or snared. Deer were taken in snares which were sometimes baited with acorns, or set near a tree which had been cut down for the deer to browse upon. Wolves, bears, martens, and other animals were taken in dead-falls which varied in size according to the bulk and strength of the animal sought. When hunting the bear he was driven as near the cabin of the hunter as possible before killing, to save transporting the meat.
Fish were caught in nets set across small rivers or coves, or shot with arrows when the tide was low. Sturgeon were taken in nets, or were harpooned from a canoe at night, the fish being attracted by the light of burning birch-bark. Ale- wives were caught with a hoop-net attached to a long handle. Fish were also taken in weirs and in cylindrical basket traps, and with hook and line. Wood informs us that the lines were stronger than those of English make, and were attached to bone hooks.
The fish hook in general use among the northern Atlantic Coast tribes was shaped like the letter V, with one arm of bone about half the length of the other. These hooks are still in use
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among the Montagnais Indians of Labrador, and hundreds of the bone points have been found in the shell heaps along the New England coast.
Champlain secured one of these hooks from an Indian near Plymouth Harbor. It was "made of a piece of wood to which they attached a bone . and fasten it very se- curely. The whole has a fang-shape and the line attached to it is made out of the bark of a tree. They gave me one of their hooks which I took as a curiosity. In it the bone was fastened on by hemp, like that of France as it seemed to me, and they told me that they gather this plant without be- ing obliged to cultivate it." This was undoubtedly the com- mon Indian hemp ( Apocynum canabenum).
In calm weather lobsters were speared from a canoe. The staff was two to three yards long with one end pointed and notched. Harpoon points for taking sturgeon and other large fish were made of bone with one or more barbs. Near the base was a perforation for the attachment of the line, which according to Wood was sometimes two hundred feet long.
WEAPONS (1620-1675)
Bows of handsome shape were made of walnut and other woods, and strung with a cord of moose sinew. Elder shoots were commonly used for arrow-shafts. The sharpened end of the wooden foreshaft was stuck loosely into the pith at one end of the shaft, which was bound with cord to prevent splitting. The foreshaft was joined loosely that it might be- come detached when the deer or other animal was shot. Ver- arzanus saw arrows headed with "jasper, hard marble, and other sharp stones." A large proportion of the arrowheads found in the southeastern section of the state are of white quartz, and this is probably the white stone referred to. Tri- angular points of copper and brass were early substituted for those of stone, and were quite common at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
Points made of splinters of bone, ground to the proper shape, were also common; and the tail of the horseshoe crab was often used. The Pilgrims at Cape Cod picked up eighteen arrows after an encounter with the Indians. These were
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CANOES
headed with brass, pieces of antler, and eagle claws. Turkey and eagle feathers were used for feathering arrows. Eagle feathers were preferred, however, for they would not "sing" in flying.
Quivers were often made of otter skin. Gookin writes that bark shields were used for defence. The common form of war club was made from the lower section of a small tree, the bulbous portion where the roots join serving for the head which was usually carved into a ball.
The tomahawk was a piece of wood about two feet long somewhat thickened at one end, through which a hole was made. Into this perforation was set the smaller end of a grooveless stone hatchet. This was a common form of stone implement or weapon. Gookin refers to them as "tomahawks made of wood like a pole axe, with a sharpened stone fastened therein."
CANOES (1620-1675)
By referring to the map of Massachusetts (at p. 130), it will be noted that the Pennacook Indians occupied the north- eastern section of the state. The Pennacook area also ex- tended into Vermont, New Hampshire, and the southwestern part of Maine. They are usually classed with the Abnaki group which centers in Maine and extends into the Provinces. Their material culture was somewhat different from the other tribes of Massachusetts. This difference is especially notice- able in their canoes. North of about the latitude of Salem the birch-bark type prevailed. South of this point the dugout seems to have been used almost exclusively.
The bark canoe is well known. The framework was usually of white cedar, and the covering of birch-bark; pre- pared roots of the cedar or spruce were used for sewing and wrapping, and the seams were rendered watertight with spruce gum. The model of the Abnaki canoe is familiar to all, as it is perpetuated in the modern club canoe of inland lakes and streams throughout Massachusetts.
The dugout, which was the common form over the greater portion of this commonwealth, was usually of pine or chest- nut, though sometimes of oak. The larger ones were capable
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of carrying twenty people. Ordinarily, however, they were only about 20 feet long with a width of 18 to 24 inches.
Speaking of the dugout seen near the present site of Boston, Champlain says : "They are made in the following manner. After cutting down at a cost of much labor and time the largest and tallest tree they can find by means of stone hatch- ets . they remove the bark, and round off the tree except on one side, where they apply fire gradually along its entire length; and sometimes they put red-hot pebble-stones on top. When the fire is too fierce they extinguish it with a little water, not entirely, but so that the edge of the boat may not be burnt. It being hollowed out as much as they wish, the scrape it all over with stones, which they use instead of knives. These stones resemble our musket flints." Such scrapers are very plentiful and are found in nearly all collec- tions of New England stone implements.
Another account is by Williams. He writes: "I have seene a Native goe into the woods with his hatchet carrying onely a Basket of Corne with him, and stones to strike a fire when he had felled his tree (being a Chesnut) he made him a little house or shed of the bark of it, he puts fire and followes the burning of it with fire, in the midst in many places : his corne he boyles and hath the Brook by him, and sometimes angles for a little fish : but so hee continues burning and hewing un- till he hath within ten or twelve dayes (lying there at his work alone) finished."
The stones to strike fire, referred to above, were a lump of iron pyrites and a piece of flint, each about the size of a hen's egg; or two lumps of pyrites. Fire was produced by striking these together, the sparks being caught upon "a piece of touch- wood much like our sponge in England." When flint and pyrites were used, the flint was sometimes fastened to a stick which served as a handle. These fire-making tools were car- ried in a little bag of tanned skin fastened to the girdle. The two-part fire drill was also used, but pyrites was the favorite method in this locality.
UTENSILS (1620-1675)
The Indians were very proficient in making wooden bowls and spoons, a few of which may be seen in our museums.
MM MM
A
B
C
D
After Champlain, 1605-06
HABITATIONS AND GARDENS, COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS
A. House and garden at Chatham. B. C. At Nauset Harbor. D. At Gloucester.
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Massachusetts Historical Society
WAMPANOAG INDIAN BOWL OF WOOD
Museum of American Indian
STONE HATCHET IN ITS ORIGINAL HANDLE Found in sand under salt water near New Bedford
EBEL LEBE BBBBBBBB
Peabody Museum of Harvard University POTTERY VESSELS FROM GRAVE AT WINTHROP, MASSACHUSET INDIANS Drawings from Professor Charles C. Willoughby
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UTENSILS
Morton says: "They have dainty wooden bowles of maple, of highe price amongst them; and these are dispersed by bar- tering one with the other, and are but in certain parts of the Country made, where the several trades are appropriated to the inhabitants of those parts only."
Gookin writes of dishes, spoons, and ladles made "very smooth and artificial, and of a sort of wood not subject to split. These they make in several sizes." Josselyn refers to "dishes, spoons, and trays wrought very smooth and neatly out of the knots of wood." These were very skilfully made of the burly portions of maple, elm, and other trees, and were often ornamented with carved representations of the heads of dogs or other animals.
The colonists early recognized the excellence of the material used by the Indians in making their wooden utensils, and serv- iceable bowls were wrought by them from birdseye maple. Examples may be seen in colonial museums. They have a clumsy appearance, however, when compared with native work: their walls are proportionately thicker, and they lack the pleasing outlines and variety of design shown by the better class of Indian bowls.
Baskets and bags were made in great variety. Very few examples, however, have been preserved. The various forms of splint baskets and sieves used by many Algonquian tribes in the preparation of corn foods were doubtless in general use. In one of the houses at Cape Cod the Pilgrims found "baskets of sundry sorts, bigger and some lesser, finer and some coarser ; some very cunningly wrought with black and white in pretty works."
Gookin says that rushes, bents (coarse grass), maize husks, silkgrass, and wild hemp were used for baskets and bags, some of which were ornamented with designs of birds, beasts, fishes, and flowers. To this list, Josselyn adds spark (rush) and the the bast of the lime tree. Wood says: In summer the In- dians gather hemp and rushes and material for dyes "of which they make curious baskets with inter-mixed colors and por- traitures of antique Imagery." Some of the bags and sacks woven of Indian hemp would hold five or six bushels.
Birch-bark buckets, boxes, and dishes were common, es- pecially among the Pennacook. Josselyn writes: "Delicate
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THE WILDERNESS AND THE INDIAN
sweet dishes too they make of Birch-Bark sewed with threads drawn from Spruse or white Cedar-Roots, and garnished on the outside with flourisht works, and on the brims with glis- tering quills taken from the Porcupine, and dyed, some black, others red, the white are natural; these they make of all sizes from a dram cup to a dish containing a pottle, likewise Buck- ets to carry water or the like, large Boxes too of the same mna- terials, Kettles of Birchen-bark."
Gookin says: "Their pails to fetch their water in, are made of birch barks, artificially doubled up, that it hath four corners and a handle in the midst. Some of these will hold two or three gallons: and they will make one of them in an hours time."
Pottery vessels were in general use, but there are few refer- ences to them by the early writers. Champlain says that the Indians boil their corn in earthen pots. Morton writes: "They have earthen pots of divers sizes, from a quart to a gallon, 2 or 3, to boyl their vittles in, very strong though they be thin like our iron pots."
In Gookin's time there were few in use. He says: "The pots they seeth their food in, which were heretofore, and yet are in use among some of them, are made of clay or earth, al- most in the form of an egg with the top taken off. But now they generally get kettles of brass, copper or iron. These they find more lasting than those of clay, which were subject to be broken; and the clay or earth they were made of was very scarce and dear."
A few of these pottery vessels have been taken from graves in this commonwealth, and many fragments have been re- covered from the shell-heaps and old habitation sites.
According to Williams some of the Indians did not smoke : "But they are rare Birds; for generally all the Men through- out the Countrey have a tobacco-bag with a pipe in it hanging at their back; sometimes they make such great pipes both of wood and stone that they are two feet long, with men and beasts carved, so big and massive that a Man may be hurt mortally by one of them."
Josselyn refers to stone pipes with images upon them. A considerable number of tobacco pipes of various shapes, both of stone and terra-cotta have been recovered from Indian
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GAMES
graves in different parts of this commonwealth, and may be seen in museums and private collections. Besides tobacco, the natives used Kinnikinnick, a compound of tobacco and the bark of the cornus or similar material for smoking ; also several substitutes.
GAMES (1620-1675)
The principal game played by the Indian was called "hub- bub." It consisted of a shallow wooden platter, ten or twelve inches in diameter; several small discs of bone, marked or simply colored on one side; and a package of counters, con- sisting of split sticks. Sometimes plum stones were substi- tuted for the discs. In playing, the platter containing the dice was thumped on the ground. The discs "mount changing col- ors with the windy whisking of their hands to and fro, which action in their sport they must use, smiting themselves on the breast and thigh, and crying out 'hub, hub, hub.'" The count- ing varied according to the number of discs falling with the marked or painted side uppermost. Tally was kept with the splints. Much interest was taken in the game which was some- times played in public in an arbor constructed for the pur- pose, on which were hung wampum and other objects wagered in the game. Village played against village, a player being chosen from each. These public games were attended by many spectators.
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