USA > Massachusetts > Dukes County > Marthas Vineyard > The history of Martha's Vineyard, Dukes County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 5
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Another tale which has come down to us from the Vine- yard Indians is as follows: "One day he decided to go to Cuttyhunk, which was but a few strides for one so famous as he, but he did not wish to get his feet wet, and taking some stones in his apron he began laying the foundations of a bridge. While engaged in this absorbing occupation a monster crab bit his toe and firmly held that member in its great claw, which caused Michabo to roar with pain, and in his anger he threw his load in every direction in his efforts to release himself. The rocks thus scattered mark the place now called the "Devil's Bridge," a fateful spot for mariners.1 On an- other occasion an offering was made to him by his subjects of Nope, of all the tobacco on the island, and filling his great hopuonk or pipe, he sat down in front of his "den" and en- joyed this huge smoke. After taking his fill of this diversion, he turned over the bowl and knocked the ashes from it, and as they were carried by the wind to the eastward, they fell in a heap and formed the island of Nantucket, which was known as the Devil's Ash Heap by the natives."2
1"The natives of the Elizabeth Island say that the Devell was making a stone bridge over from the main to Nanamesit Island, and while he was rowling the stones and placing them under water, a crab catched him by the fingers, with which he snatched up his hand and flung it towards Nantucket, and the crabs breed there ever since." ("Memoranda of Naushon," by Wait Winthrop, 1702.)
2 Mrs. Mary A. Cleggett Vanderhoop, of Gay Head, prepared a very interesting series of popular articles on the "History and Traditions of the Gay Head Indians" for the New Bedford Standard, which were published in the summer of 1904, and the
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49
History of Martha's Vineyard
As there was a benevolent god which the Indians cred- ited with all their good fortune, so there was an evil spirit who brought them sickness and mischance. This was Chepy or Cheeby, sometimes called Abbamocko.1 This god was a universally accepted personage in the Algonquian mythol- ogy, and part of his performances relate to the Vineyard, where he vented some of his anger upon the terrified natives of Nope. Another of their bad deities was one called Squan- tum, "but worship him they do not," says an early traveler among the tribes of New England .? This name is a con- tracted form of "musquantum," meaning "he is angry," and when accidents befell them, the terrified natives would say with bated breath, "musquantum manit!" The local legend is to the effect that Squantum lived with Moshup as his wife, and that her eyes were square, and to hide this hideous deformity, she wore her hair over her face. Twelve children were born to them, all daughters, and they lived an ideal home life in the "Den" on Aquinniuh, the Indian name for Gay Head. Her life was so subordinated to this domestic situa- tion that we do not hear much of her miraculous deeds except in the manner of her "taking off." Traditions differ as to this event, some saying she jumped from the highest of the chromatic cliffs of the western end of Nope, and passed for- ever out of sight into the blue waters of the Atlantic, while a more romantic version is to the effect that, led by Moshup along the glistening sands of the beaches of Gay Head and Squipnocket, the twain disappeared in one of the huge hum- mocks near "Zac's Cliffs." Imaginative children of Algon- quian ancestry were kept within leash by whispered references to the mysterious reappearances of Squantum in this region, where she came out to smoke or to bathe, and any unusual sounds at nightfall were attributed to "Old Squant'," who was said to be warning mariners against shipwreck. This form of legend does not fit the accepted type of lore about the Squantum of the Indians elsewhere, but it is given for what it is worth-a ghost story.
author of this book regrets that there is not space to quote all of her picturesque nar- rative of the legends she has incorporated in her chapters about Moshup and his mythical associates. They vary in some particulars from the legends which are in print, but this is inseparable from such literature.
1This word is another form of Tchippe, meaning separated, apart, that is, dead; hence, a spirit, a ghost, one apart from the living. "Abbamocho or Cheepie many times smites them with incurable diseases, scares them with apparitions and panic terrors." (Josselyn, Two Voyages, 133).
2 Josselyn: "Two Voyages"; comp., Higginson, " New England's Plantation," and Roger Williams' " Key into the Language of America."
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The Aboriginal Inhabitants
The last myth which it will be profitable to consider in this section relates to Cheepy, the other Evil One, and in- cludes a version of the building of the "Devil's Bridge." The building of this bridge was a matter of dispute between two elements of Aquinniuh; one whom we may designate as the progressive party, desired it for convenience of traveling to the main land, while the conservative portion of the inhab- itants felt that it would serve as a thoroughfare for those on the main as well, and thus they would be crowded by strangers, and their peaceful homes disturbed by a foreign element. The progressive sentiment prevailed and we consider it as the element inimical to the interests of the Indians, for it was influenced by the wiles of Cheepie. He agreed to build a permanent structure, not an unsubstantial affair of wood. A formal agreement and contract was drawn up between the people and Cheepie, by which he was to complete the bridge from Aquinniuh to Poocutoh-hunk-konnoh, now called by the shortened form of Cuttyhunk, between the hour of sunset and before the crowing of the cocks in the morning. Beginning the gigantic task according to his compact, Cheepie worked with all of his Titanic powers, and was making won- derful progress, when a plot contrived by one of the opposi- tion was brought into action. Doubtless it was devised by the Good Spirit, Michabo, but the local tale is silent on this phase of the legend. The bridge was rapidly pushing its length across the sound, when the trick was disclosed. It was based upon the habits of the cock, under the influence of light, whether it be natural or artificial, and one of the opposition was given the means to flash a torch in front of the cock whose crow was to mark the limit of time for Cheep- ie's contract. Waving the light before the astonished fowl, a loud crow and the flapping of wings was the response to the glaring flame, and the day was saved for the good Indians who opposed the mighty Evil Spirit.
But in after years it did not need a bridge to make a way for the alien, and he came in great canoes, larger than they had ever seen before, and they were filled with Wautaconu- a-og, men with coats; of another color, from the east. They brought with them strange weapons, fashioned out of a new material, had red beards, and knew not Michabo or Cheepie, nor yet Squanto. It seemed as if they were of the expected people who were to come out of the rising sun, from the dawn, white ones like Michabo, and inhabit their hunting and fish-
5I
History of Martha's Vineyard
ing grounds. The destiny of Moshup, the Good Spirit of Nope, was about to be fulfilled. "He told them, his simple subjects," as narrated by the grandmother of Thomas Cooper, before quoted, "that as the light had come among them and he belonged to the Kingdom of Darkness, he must take his leave; which, to their great sorrow, he accordingly did, and never has been heard of since."
THE INDIAN MYTHOLOGY.
The religion of the Indians of Nope was that of their great parent stock, a form of Polytheism. Besides the good and evil Ones, whose names are given in the relations of their folk-lore, they had more than a score of others. The younger Mayhew, in his story of the conversion of Hiacoomes, the first Christianized Indian of the Vineyard, states that the former companions of this primeval convert would catechize him about the new religion. "Myoxeo asking him how many Gods the English did worship, he answered, 'one God,' where- upon Myoxeo reckoned up about thirty-seven principal Gods he had, and 'shall I (said he) throw away these thirty-seven Gods for one?' "1 Evidently this incredulous native con- sidered the subject from a mathematical standpoint, and thought the showing was distinctly unfavorable for the whites. Roger Williams confirms this enumeration in his investiga- tions among the Narragansett tribe, who were allied to our own. "They have given me the names of thirty-seven, which I have, all which in their solemn worships they invocate."2 Among these gods of the Indian mythology were Wompa- nand, the "Eastern God," that is, of the dawn, or of day- light; Wunnanna meanit, the "Northern God"; Chekesu- wand, the "Western God"; Kautantowwit, the "South- western God," in whose domain, says Roger Williams, "the souls of all their great and good men and women go." This was their crude form of likening the rising sun to the begin- ning of life, and the setting of the same in the west as the end of light and life. Other gods were of special quality, such as Keesuckquand, the "Sun God"; Squauanit, the "Woman's God"; Wetuomanit, the "House God"; Paum- pagussit, the "Sea God"; Yotaanit, the "Fire God"; Nane- paushat, the "Moon's God," and distinctive gods for good
1Letter of Mayhew to Whitfield, Sept. 7, 1650.
2" Key to Language, etc.," page 110.
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The Aboriginal Inhabitants
and evil functions. The name adopted by the early Indian students, Mayhew, Eliot, Williams, and others, was Mani- tou, a word probably derived from "anue," meaning "above," with the suppositive participial form and indefinite prefix "m'anit," "he who is above."1
This religion was interpreted to the natives by a regular priesthood, whose members were called powwaws, or pau- waus, persons who are described by the missionary Mayhew as "such as cure by devilish sorcery, and to whom the devil appears sometimes."2 Their influence over the natives of the island was powerful, and it is constantly referred to by Mayhew as the principal obstacle to his progress in the work of teaching the Christian doctrines to those who wished to investigate the new belief. Their priestly duties comprised all forms of control of secular as well as spiritual affairs. Williams tells us that "they make solemn speeches and ora- tions, or Lectures to them concerning Religion, Peace, or Warre, and all thinge."3 Hariot says of them: "The inhab- itants give great credit unto their speeche, which often tymes they finde to be all true,"4 and Wood, one of the earliest writ- ers on the manners and customs of our New England abo- rigines, confirms this in his references to the powwaws. He states: "Their pow-wows betakeing themselves to their ex- orcisms and necromanticke charmes by which they bring to passe strange thinge, if we may believe the Indians."5
The information about the Indians derived from Thom- as Cooper, above quoted, includes a description of the form of worship. "Whenever the Indians worshipped," he says, "they always sang and danced, and then begged of the sun and moon, as they thought most likely to hear them, to send them the desired favor; most generally rain or fair weather, or freedom from their enemies or sickness." These dances took place in the open, and one of their places of congrega- tion for such ceremonies was the "Dancing Field" in Christ- iantown.
As an illustration of the manner of these powwaws in ex- orcising disease, the testimony of the younger Mayhew is of interest, as it came under his observation. "There was a very strange disease this yeare (1643)," he wrote, "amongst
'Trumbull, "Natick Dictionary," 268.
2 Letter of Mayhew to J(ohn) D(ownam ?), Nov. 18, 1647.
3Key to Language, page III.
4Narrative (1685).
"New England's Prospect, c. xii (1634).
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History of Martha's Vineyard
the Indians: they did run up and down till they could run no longer; they made their faces black as a coale, snatched up any weapon, speaking great words, but did no hurt; I have seen many of them in this case."1 The Cooper legend, already quoted, gives us another picture of the native mak- ing a sort of sacrificial offering for the benefit of others less fortunate than himself, and leaves the realm of lore for that of fact. He says that consumption and yellow fever were the scourges of the Indians before the coming of the whites. In this nomenclature we must make some allowance for error, in the light of our knowledge of the diseases mentioned. It is probable that small pox was referred to in the term "yellow fever," as this disease is a tropical product exclusively, ex- cept in isolated cases which are imported to the north by rapid conveyance, at the present time. The pustular erup- tions of small pox, with the incrustations following, gave the body a yellowish appearance, which was described as a "yellow fever." This disease could be "laid," as he ex- plained, by the following ceremonies: "The rich, that is such as had a canoe, skins, axes, etc., brought them. They took their seats in a circle; and all the poor sat around without. The richest then proposed to begin to lay the sick- ness; and having in his hand something in shape resembling his canoe, skin or whatever else his riches were, he threw it up in the air, and whoever of the poor without could take it, the property it was intended to resemble became forever transferred to him or her. After the rich had thus given away all their movable property to the poor, they looked out the handsomest and most sprightly young man in the assembly and put him in an entirely new wigwam, built of everything new for that purpose. Then they formed into two files, at a small distance from each other, one standing in the space at each end, put fire to the bottom of the wigwam on all parts, and fell to singing and dancing. Presently the youth would leap out of the flames and fall down, to appearances dead. Him they committed to the care of five virgins, prepared for that purpose, to restore to life again. The time required for this would be uncertain, from six to forty-eight hours, during which time the dance must be kept up. When he was restored, he would tell that he had been carried in a large thing high up in the air, where he came to a great company of
'Letter, Mayhew to Whitfield, Sept. 7, 1650. (" Light Appearing," etc., p. 4).
54
The Aboriginal Inhabitants
white people, with whom he had interceded hard to have the distemper layed; and generally after much persuasion would obtain a promise, or answer of peace which never failed of laying the distemper."
INDIAN WEAPONS AND UTENSILS.
The implements used by the aborigines belonged to the stone age, with some exceptions referred to later on. Their weapons were made of various kinds of stone, and fashioned into arrow heads, spear points, and hammers, which were fastened to shafts or handles by thongs of skin, or the inside of the bark of willow trees.1 Articles of domestic service, such as mortars and pestles for pounding up and pulveriz- ing their corn, were made of stone, and possibly mortars were fashioned out of oak wood by charring and hollowing out a cavity by successive applications of live coals. Fishing implements were probably made of bones ingeniously bent into form like a hook, and it is known that they were cog- nizant of the use of nets constructed of animal gut, flax, and vegetable binders, grasses, bark, and the like, as well as of the making of weirs for the herring runs. Undoubtedly they used spears for the larger fish, along the shores, but it is doubtful if they were ever much engaged in hunting the striped bass or blue fish with their primitive devices. One custom learned from the Indians was a form of fishing by torch-light, and known as "wequashing," a word which survives to this day in certain portions of New England. It is an anglicized participial form of weekquash, an eastern Algonquian term for fishing by an artificial light. The word wequai means "light," and we find wequananteg, a candle- stick, mentioned by Eliot. The Indian fishing stations on the island are well defined by the names which have survived. Kataamuck (Katama), a crab fishing place; Chickemmoo, weir fishing place; Uncawamuck (Eastville), further or ut- most fishing place; Quanaimes, the long fish place; Ashap- paquonsett, where the nets are spread, and others along the sea inlets and creeks.
Many of the smaller stone implements are found every year in the farms about the island, when the ground is plowed
'The means employed by the Indians in making these small arrow-heads, some of them small and delicate stones, has long remained a mystery. Recently, a student of archæology, after repeated experiments, has demonstrated the process by the use of a small hard-wood mallet. The shape of it is beveled and the stroke applied ac- cording to the cleavage of the stone employed.
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History of Martha's Vineyard
deeply. By this means several collections of arrow heads, spears, pestles, etc. have been made by those interested.1
The method employed by the Indians for starting a blaze, by the use of flint and tinder, is thus related by Brere- ton: "They strike fire in this manner; every one carrieth about him in a purse of tewed leather a Minerall stone (which I take to be their Copper), and with a flat Emerie stone (where- with Glasiers cut glasse, and Cutlers glase blades) tied fast to the end of a little sticke, gently he striketh upon the Miner- all stone, and within a stroke or two a sparke falleth upon a piece of Touchwood (much like our Spunge in England), and with the least sparke he maketh a fire presently." 2
That the aborigines had knowledge of the use of copper is clearly established by the testimony of Brereton. The objects fashioned from it must have been obtained from the natives of the Lake Superior region by a system of exchange or purchase, through intermediaries on the main land. The journalist of Gosnold's voyage says:
None of them but have chaines, earrings, or collars of this mettal; they head some of their arrows herewith, much like our broad arrow heads, very workmanly made. Their chaines are many hollow pieces semented together, ech piece of the bignesse of one of our reeds, a finger in length ten or twelve of them together on a string, which they weare about their necks; their collars they weare about their bodies like bandelieres, a handfull broad, all hollow pieces, like the other, but somewhat shorter foure hundred pieces in a collar, very fine and evenly set together. Be- sides these, they have large drinking cups, made like sculles, and other thinne plates of Copper, made much like our boare speare blades, all which they so little esteeme, as they offere their fairest collars or chaines for a knife or such like trifle, but we seemed little to regard it; yet I was desirous to understand where they had such store of this mettall, and made signes to one of them (with whom I was verie familiar), who, tak- ing a piece of Copper in his hand, made a hole with his finger in the ground and withall pointed to the maine from whence they came.3
ABORIGINAL POPULATION.
Of the number of Indians living on the island at this period, we are without definite knowledge. One author-
"The late Rev. Daniel Stevens of Vineyard Haven was an early collector and his specimens, inherited by a son, are now on deposit in an historical museum in Bristol, R. I., while a fine array of all varieties of implements has been gathered by Mr. Chester . Poole, Mr. Daniel Vincent and Mrs. Frank P. Flanders, all of Chilmark. The author also has a small collection of arrow heads and spear heads.
2 Brief and True Relation, 10.
3True Relation, 9.
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The Aboriginal Inhabitants
ity estimated the Indian population in 1642 as three thousand.1 Whether their numbers had been affected by the "epidem- icall disease" which, for three years prior to the landing at Plymouth had decimated some tribes, and is believed to have been the small-pox, is not known; but presumably they suffered somewhat from the then prevailing scourge, which existed along the coast from the Penobscot to Narra- gansett bay.2
These, then, were the people inhabiting our island as lords of the soil, from the remotest periods to the time when it passed into the possession of the English owners by "right" of discovery and settlement.
1 2 Mass. Hist. Coll., III, 92.
2 Daniel Gookin, writing in 1674, says: "I have discoursed with some old Indians, that were then youths, who say that the bodies all over were exceeding yellow (de- scribing it by a yellow garment he showed me), both before they died and afterwards." (Ibid., I, 148).
k
18'
A
B
Section at A-B.
STONE IMPLEMENT,
FOUND AT MILL HILL, EDGARTOWN.1
1 The author is indebted to Mr. Geo. M. Warren, engineer in charge of the con- struction of the water supply system of Edgartown, for a description of this stone weapon found by him in 1906 during excavations at this place.
57
History of Martha's Vineyard
CHAPTER III.
EARLY VOYAGES OF DISCOVERY.
It cannot be said that the history of Martha's Vineyard begins with the voyages of the Norsemen to the country called Vinland by them during their visits to an unexplored region in the unknown west, in the roth and IIth centuries, for much of the truth of their discoveries lies hidden in the mysterious descriptions of the Icelandic sagas. The general consensus of historical judgment is that these hardy mariners penetrated our New England coast lines during the period covered by their voyages, and the only points of dispute that arise touch the attempted identification of localities described by them in their sagas. Here local pride and historical acumen often strain at their moorings in the endeavor to adopt the general- ized narrative of the writers to local surroundings. The most careful and conservative commentary on the subject accepts the view of their visit to the southern coast of New England, and upon this basis proceeds to a scheme of identi- fication of locality. This feature is the work of Professor C. C. Rafn, the learned geographer and student of Norse literature.1
In the saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, narrating a voyage undertaken in the year 1006, the following description oc- curs respecting the locality about the south shore of Cape Cod, which they called Kiarlness, Keel-nose, because it re- sembled the keel of a ship. The writer thus continues:
They sailed into a frith; there lay an island before it, round which there were strong currents, therefore called they it Stream island. There were so many eider ducks on the island that one could scarcely walk in consequence of the eggs.
The name of Stream island in Icelandic is Straumey, which the learned geographer Rafn has identified as Martha's Vineyard, and which is accepted by the editor of the sagas as the correct inference. In the light of such high author- ity, we may rest our case of the visit of the Norsemen to the Vineyard and adopt their conclusions. So the first known
Voyages of the Norsemen in the roth and IIth centuries, by Edmund F. Slafter, A. M., D. D., Prince Society, Vol. X.
58
Early Voyages of Discovery
name of our island, christened almost nine centuries ago, was Straumey, the stream island, so called because of that peculiar co-tidal phenomena which impressed all the early voyagers, sailing into these waters.
VERRAZZANO'S VOYAGE, 1524.
Over five hundred years elapse before we have any further definite record of a European exploration into these waters, and this was the voyage of the Italian navigator, Giovanni da Verrazzano. He was a corsair in the French service and left France in 1523, in command of an expedition which explored the coast of North America, from North Caro- lina to Newfoundland during 1524, and in the course of this extended travel along our shores, he entered New York bay and spent some time in and about Narragansett Bay. While it is not possible to say that he set foot upon the Vineyard, yet it is within the probabilities that he did not pass by the largest island on the coast without making a landing. He is supposed to have disembarked upon one of the islands off this coast, which some have thought to be Block island, but it does not seem reasonable that he would specially desig- nate a small island, and not notice one next to it thrice its size. But the maps and narratives of the early explorers are mysterious reading, and it is only possible to say that he named an island off the south coast of New England in hon- or of the mother of Francis I. of France. Mercator, who made the map based upon the explorations of Verrazzano, con- founded the name of Claudia, the wife of Francis I., with that of the king's mother, Luisa, and so placed the former name on his charts. Others followed his nomenclature, and it was not until modern discovery of Verrazzano's own map showed that the voyager had properly placed the name of Luisa on the island he had found. A number of histor- ical students consider that it refers to the Vineyard.1 If this be true, it will be seen that our island bore the name of Luisa before it came to be known as Martha.
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