USA > New Hampshire > Hillsborough County > Manchester > History of Manchester, formerly Derryfield, in New-Hampshire : including that of ancient Amoskeag, or the middle Merrimack Valley, together with the address, poem, and other proceedings of the centennial celebration of the incorporation of Derryfield at Manchester, October 22, 1851 > Part 10
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These peculiar advantages, pertaining to the fishery at this place, made it par excellence, the fishing-place, hence as before suggested, the Indian name of Namaoskeag.
These were no ordinary advantages to the Indian, depending as he did for subsistance upon fish, flesh, fowl, and such vege- tables as his limited agriculture might produce. Hence we can readily suppose, that where fish were so abundant, and so read- ily to be taken, that there the Indians would flock together in vast numbers, to supply their future wants; and that the place would be one of great importance. Such was the fact, and Namaoskeag, for a long time, was not only the great point of attraction to all provident Indians, but was the royal residence of the ancient Sagamons of the Merrimack valley.
At Namaoskeag, upon the bluff immediately east of the falls, was the main village or town occupied by the Indians, as is plainly shown by the abundance of arrow and spear heads, and the debris of stones from which they were manufactured, to- gether with pieces of pottery, and other unmistakable evidences of an ancient Indian town, still to be seen and found ; while down the river to the Souhegan, there were smaller settlements, wherever were good fishing or planting grounds. In Bedford, opposite Carthagena Island, on land of Hon. Thomas Chandler, and opposite the mouth of Cohos river, such settlements exist- ed, the vestiges of which still exist at the former place, and did at the latter, till the hand of improvement swept them away.
But, as before suggested, the main Indian village was at the Falls, called by Mr Eliot, "A great fishing place Namaske upon
31
FISHERIES AT NAMAOSKEAG FALLS.
Merimak," and " which," he says, " belongeth to Papassacon- naway."* Here, prior to 1650, Passaconnaway had a principal residence, and was so anxious to have the Rev. Mr. Eliot come here and establish his community of Christian or "Praying Indians," as his proselytes were called, that he offered to furnish him with any amount of land that he might want for that pur- pose. The old Sagamon held out such inducements, and the place was of so much importance, that Eliot at one time had serious thoughts of establishing himself here; but the distance was so great to transport supplies, and the natives in Massachu- setts were so averse to going farther north, that he thought "the Lord by the Eye of Providence seemed not to look thither,"+ and he located himself at Natick.}
There is no doubt that Mr Eliot afterwards found opportunity to visit this place, and to preach and establish a school here, as Gookin in his account of the " Christian Indians," names Naam- keke as one of the "places where they (the Indians) met to worship God and keep the Sabbath ; in which places there was at each place a teacher and schools for the youth at most of them."|| And as no other man established schools or preaching among the Indians of the interior, save Mr. Eliot, it follows con- clusively that he both preached and taught at Namaoskeag. So that our ancient town, not only has the honor of having been the scene of the philanthropic efforts and labors of "the Apostle Eliot," but also that of having the first " preaching and school " established within its limits, that was established in the State, north-west of Exeter, however remiss its white inhabit- ants may have been in these particulars.
*See Eliot's Letter Mass. His. Coll., Vol. IV., 3d series, ps. 82 and 123. tSee as before Mass. His. Coll., Vol. IV., 3d series, ps. 123 and 124.
¿Natick means a clearing, or place free from trees, from the Indian words Naa (bare) and Auke (a place), t being thrown in for the sound. Hence Ned- dock (a cape in York county, Me.,) and Natticook or Naacook, the ancient name of Litchfield, the town upon the east side of the Merrimack, and joining Man- chester on the south.
It would seem from Ralle's vocabulary, that the Norridgewocks had an ad- jective Nete, meaning bare or cleared. This prefixed to goo'ike their noun for place or spot of land, forms Netegoo'ike, the derivitive noun meaning cleared land or a bare place, almost similar in formation and sound to Naa-t-auke the noun of the same meaning among the Nipmucks or Pennacooks.
#See Trans. and Coll. Amer. Anti. Society, page 518.
32
.
THE HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
CHAPTER IV.
Manners and customs of the Pennacooks .- Fisheries at Pawtucket .- Nama- oskeag .- Ahquedaukee .- Peculiarities of alewives, shad and salmon .- Shad confined to the Winnepesaukee .- Salmon to thePemegewasset .- Ahquedau- kenash or Weirs .- Ahquedaukenash at Namaoskeag .- Fishing by torch light, the bow, spear and line .- Agriculture .- Hoe and tomhegun .- The crow .- In- dian corn .- Mortar and pestle .- Nasamp .- Succotash. - Beans. Gourds. -Squashes .- Pumpkins .- Melons .- The bow and arrow .- Drives .- Deer Neck -Fox Point .- Kulheag .- Racket & canoe .- Work of Indian women .- The Wigwam .- Cooking meat, samp and hominy .- Clearing the ground and plant- ing .- Pounding corn .- Embroidery .- Love of children .- The cradle ; cause of the fine limbs of the Indian .- Polygamy .- War .- Tomahawk .- Scalping knife .- The fire brand dance .- Outfit for the war path .- Totem .- The quiver. -Dress .- Attack .- Scalping .- Running the gantlet .- The Scalp dance.
In the preceding chapter, Pawtucket and Namaoskeag have been spoken of as famous fishing places upon the Merrimack ; but there was another noted fishing place within the territory of the Pennacooks, where shad alone were caught, and which was almost equally celebrated with those at Namaoskeag and Pawtucket. It was located at the outlet of Lake Winnepe- saukee, and was known by the name of Ahquedaukenash, meaning literally stopping places or dams, from Ahque (to stop ) and Auke (a place. ) This word had for its plural Ahque- daukenash, and again by corruption, Aquedoctan, a name which was extended by the whites to the whole Winnepesaukee river. It is a curious fact in the history of the fisheries upon the Mer- rimack, that while alewives, shad, and salmon passed up the lower part of Merrimack in company, yet the most of the ale- wives went up the small rivulets before coming to the forks of the Merrimack at Franklin, while the salmon and shad parted company at the forks, the former going up the Pemegewasset,* and the latter passing up the Winnepesaukee. This peculiarity was owing to the natures of those fish. The alewives were a small fish, and sought small lakes or ponds to deposit their
* Pemegewasset means literally The crooked-mountain-pine-place, from Pen- naquis, (crooked), Wadchu (a mountain), Cooash (pines), and Auke (a place). By contraction, it became Penna-chu-ash-auke, and by corruption Pemege- wasset.
33
AHQUEDAUKENASH OR WEIRS.
" spawn," that were easy of access, warm, and free from large fish, that would destroy them and their progeny. The shad was a much larger fish, and sought large lakes for spawning, where the water was warm and abundant ; while the salmon, delighting in cold, swift water, sought alone those waters fed by springs, or formed by rivulets from the ravines and gorges of the mountain sides, which meandering through dense forests, rippling over pebbly bottoms, or rushing over rocks or preci- pices, formed those ripples, rapids, whirlpools and falls, in which the salmon delights, and those dark, deep, cool basins, or eddies, in which to deposite its spawn. Hence the fact that alewives were seldom found above the forks of the Merrimack, and that the salmon held exclusive possession of the cold, rapid, dark Pemegewasset, while the shad appropriated the warm, clear waters of the Winnepesaukee, neither trespassing upon the do- main of the other.
The Ahquedaukenash then of the Indians, and the Aquedah- can and Aquedoctan of the English, were one and the same name, applied to the fishing place, of the Indians, at the outlet of Lake Winnepesaukee, now known as " The Weirs." This was called Ahquedaukee, or the Weirs, from the fact that the dams or weirs at this place were permanent ones. The Win- nepesaukee is not a variable river, and at the outlet of the lake the water for some distance passed over a hard pebbly bottom, and did not average more than two feet in depth. This was an excellent place for ahquedaukenash or dams, and could not fail of being duly improved by the Indians. Accordingly as before suggested, they had here permanent weirs. Not being able to drive stakes or posts into the hard pebbly bottom of the river, they placed large rocks at convenient distances from each other, in a zig-zag line across the river. Against these they in- terwove their brushwood weirs, or strung their hempen nets, according to their ability. Such weirs were used in the spring and fall, both when the fish went up and down the river. Such ahquedaukenash were frequent upon this and other rivers, and the rocks thus placed in the river by the Indians, remained in their position long after the settlement of the English in that neighborhood, and were used by them for a like purpose ; hence the name of weirs as continued at the present time.
In the fishing season, the whole Pennacook nation were at their home at Namaoskeag, and welcomed strangers from abroad with feasting and revelry. The first thing to be done was to make an " ahquedaukee " or weir. This was usually done after this wise : a line of stout sapling stakes was extended across
34
THE HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
the river, some ten or twelve feet apart, at a point where the bottom was soft, so that the stakes could be driven into the sand or mud. These stakes were inclined down stream, and were interwoven with birch tops and other brush wood, or nets were strung from stake to stake, so as to present an effectual barrier to the fish. On one side of the river, one or more stakes in distance were left clear of brush or nets, so that the fish might have a free passage up.
There can be little doubt of the fact, that at the outlet of the basin, at the foot of the main falls of Namaoskeag, and upon the west side of the Merrimack, a place now known as the eddy, as before suggested, that the Indians had a permanent weir, made by placing boulders of stone at convenient distances across the out- let of the basin, in like manner as at their ahquedaukenash at the outlet of the Winnepesaukee. The position was equally eligible, and had this superior advantage, that when constructed, both salmon and shad were secured in the basin above.
A run or school of fish would pass up till they met the swift water from the falls, when they would retreat in myriads down the stream, till they came in contact with the wier-here they would turn again to meet the rushing school from above. Thus in a little time the capacious basin above the weir would be filled, and black with fish,-the strong and athletic salmon throw- ing himself out of the water in his affright and rage. This was the favorable time for the Indian fishers. The watch would give the signal, and the birch canoes would speed their way to the scene, an Indian in the stern of each plying his light paddle, and another in each bow with a spear or dip-net, accor- ding to his ability or ingenuity. When fish were so penned up as it were, it required but little skill to catch them, and a thrust with the spear, or a dip of the net, was seldom unsuccessful. When the canoes were filled, or the fishers became tired of their labor or sport, the fish were taken to the shore and delivered over to the squaws, who stood ready with their knives, and dressing the fish, split them and laid them in the sun to dry, or hung them upon the centre-pole of their wigwams to smoke. Each night was passed in dancing and feasting, a kind of Thanksgiving for the success of the day. At these fishing sea- sons, lover's vows were plighted, marriages were consummated, speeches made, and treaties formed. There can be little doubt that it was a fishing season at Namaoskeag, when in 1660 Pas- saconnaway made his dying speech, spoken of by Hubbard, and that here too both Passaconnaway, and Wannalancet his son, heard the apostle Eliot preach to their people, and set the
35
INDIAN METHOD OF FISHING,
example to their followers of publicly recommending the Christian religion.
Another method of taking fish, practised extensively by the Indians, was by spearing them in the night time, by torch light. This kind of fishing was practised in the spring and fall, when the water is too cold for "schooling," and the fish are solitary in their habits, and lay near the shore. The spear- man stood in the bow of the boat with his spear, while the torch-bearer stood near him to show the fish. A third man pro- pelled the boat gentiy along, and stopped the boat when a fish was in sight, at a signal from the spearman, to give him an opportunity to strike the fish. To be successful in this kind of fishery required great dexterity, as the canoe would careen with the slightest touch, and their spear was constructed of a single pike of stone, properly adjusted to a pole. Yet with this rude instrument they were successful fishermen, both by day and night. In short, the Indians were most expert in all kinds of fishing-except with the hook-and with that even, made of bone, they were successful. Their fish hook was made of two pieces of bone-one piece for the shank, and another for the hook or barb-fastened to the end of the shank. The shank was usually made from the leg or wing bone of some. bird. The lower end was scarfed off to a point on one side, and another piece of bone of the same size, and an inch, or inch-and -a-half in length, was scarfed at one end to fit the scarf of the shank. The pieces were then fastened together with sinews, and the upper end of the short piece being sharpened, the hook was completed. The line was made of Indian hemp, or of the inner bark of the elm, chestnut and other trees.
It is most probable that the Indians took fish with the bone hook after the peculiar manner that may be called hooking, for we can hardly conceive of their taking them in the usual man- ner with so clumsy an instrument. Hooking fish was often prac- ticed in the winter upon the Winnepesaukee, in former years, if not now, and was doubtless a mode of fishing borrowed from the Indians.
The mode was thus: The fisherman first cut a hole in the ice, usually near the entrance of some brook into the lake, and at a place where the water was of convenient depth. Near the hole he placed a plank, or for want of this, hemlock or pine boughs. Upon the plank, or boughs the fisherman stretched himself at his length, looking upon the bottom of the lake through the hole in the ice, having in his right hand a slender, straight stick, of such length as somewhat more than reached
36
THE HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
the bottom, and to the extremity of which was fastened a stout hook. Thus equipped, and the instrument resting upon the bottom, the fisherman would wait the approach of a fish. If the prey swam boldly up to the stick, with a quick jerk of the stick, it was hooked, and drawn upon the ice. But if the fish was more wary, and stopped in his course, then the fishermen gently moved the rod along, till the hook was under the fish, when with the same quick motion, it was hooked and drawn upon the ice.
In this manner, when fish were plenty and less shy than at present, the bone hook of the Indians was a formidable, and successful instrument for winter fishing.
It is said that the Indians took great numbers of salmon with the bow and arrow, shooting them as they passed up rapids and falls, but we are led to doubt the general success of this method, as a salmon, when wounded or killed, invariably sinks to the bottom, and the spear and canoe would have been required to secure each fish, after he had been struck with the arrow.
Large fish, such as the sturgeon, (called by them Kauposh) the horse mackerel and the like, they took with the spear. Two Indians would get into a canoe, and while the man at the stern would paddle the canoe swiftly, but gently up to the prey, the spearman, standing in the bow of the canoe, would strike the spear into the fish, and with such force and precision as to be able to secure him, either by hauling him into the canoe, or by towing him to the shore. The dexterity attained by the Indians in this kind of fishing, upon the sea shore, is said to have been of great advantage to our whalemen, and it is even said that the superiority of American whalemen is in a measure owing to the knowledge and skill obtained from the Indians. It is a cu- rious fact that this superiority is confined to the neighborhood of New Bedford and Nantucket, where spear fishing was pursued extensively and most adroitly by the Indians, and that the Her- ring Pond and Marshpee or Massapee (much pond) Indians are among the most expert whalemen of the present day, and are largely employmed by those pursuing the whale fishery at Nantucket and New Bedford. Whether the Indians ever caught the whale or no, we are unable to learn. It is probable, however, that they did, as Roger Williams says he had seen whales sixty feet long, and that the Indians cut them up and sent pieces far and near, for an acceptable present or dish. He says however these were often cast up, and it is not to be infer- red that they were taken by the natives. Still as he speaks of their taking large fish with an " harping iron," and speaks of the
37
INDIAN METHODS OF FISHING.
whale in connection with taking other fish, it is fair to presume that they attacked the " Leviathan of the deep" when he made his appearance upon the coast. That they took large fish, such as the sturgeon, porpoise and albicore, with a great deal of skill, and with ama instrument somewhat like, and answering all the purposes of the modern harpoon, is evident and susceptible of proof. Roger Williams says, speaking of the sturgeon, (Kau- posh) "Divers parts of the country abound with this fish, yet the natives, from the goodness and greatness of it, much prize it, and will neither furnish the English with so many, nor so cheap, that any great trade is likely to be made out of it, UNTIL THE ENGLISH THEMSELVES ARE FIT TO FOLLOW THE FISHING." Thus whatever the method was of taking this fish and other large ones, it seems the English did not then know how to practice it.
But Jocelyn, who was here in 1638, more than two hundred years ago, describes the method of taking these large fish. He says, "The Bass and Blue-fish they (the Indians) take in Har- bors and at the mouth of barred rivers, being in their canoes, striking them with their fishgig, a kind of dart or staff, to the lower end whereof they fasten a sharp, jagged bone (since they make them of Iron) with a string fastened io it, as soon as the fish is struck, they pull away the staff, leaving the bony head in the fishes body and fasten the other end to the canoe. Thus they will hale after them to shore half a dozen or half a score great fishes : this way they take sturgeon."* This is almost precisely the method of taking the whale. The form of the harpoon was the same, save that the rope was fastened to the head of it, instead of the handle, and the head was made to be separated from the handle, and to be left in the fish. Whereas, now the iron head and handle of the harpoon are inseparable. Thus it would seem that the use of the harpoon in taking large fish, as well as the manner of thus taking them, was unknown to the English that first came to New England, and that they acquired a knowledge of its use from the natives.
Upon the sea-coast, the Indians caught large quantities of fish with their hemp nets in the following manner. They stretched these nets across small creeks and rivulets by means of stakes driven into the mud, after the manner of their weirs. The fish would run up the creeks at flood tide, over and around the nets, but when the tide ebbed, they would naturally betake themselves to the channel of the creek, and thus would be left
* Mass. His. Coll. Vol. III. 3d series, page 230.
38
THE HISTORY OF MANCHESTER.
above the nets, often on dry ground, or in such shoal water as to be easily secured by the Indians. Net fishing is pursued in a like manner, at the present time, on the seacoast of Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, both by the Indians and the Whites.
As with other Indians, agriculture, hunting, and fishing, and the making of the implements necessary to prosecute these av- ocations successfully, seem to have been the appropriate duties of the men, among the Pennacooks, before the advent of the Europeans ; but after their arrival, the Indian men imposed the duties of the planting ground and garden upon their women, together with the drudgery of the wigwam; while war, hun- ting and fishing were considered the appropriate labor of the men.
The labor of tilling the soil, thus imposed upon the women, and the toils of hunting and fishing being rendered light and easy by the introduction of guns, traps, hooks, and the like, by the Europeans, agriculture became of very little conse- quence to the Indians, and they spent their time in idleness- soon had little or no attachment to the soil ; became migratory, choosing to lounge about the skirts of civilization, and to adopt most of the vices, and very few of the virtues of their white neighbors. Thus this change of habit in the Pennacooks, as in other Indians, from tillers of the soil to warriors and hunters,- mere idlers, was the bane of their tribe. The agriculture of the Pennacooks was confined to the raising of corn, beans, melons, squashes, pumpkins, and gourds, and to the digging of ground- nuts and the gathering of acorns, walnuts, and chesnuts.
Rude and simple implements were alone necessary,-the axe and the hoe. Intervales, or meadows-probably the bottoms of ponds or lakes-their waters having subsided through outlets formed in their disintegrated barriers, were usually chosen by the Indians, as their planting grounds. Such choice furnish- ed them with fertile soils, and saved them the labor of felling trees, as these Intervales were usually bare of trees of large growth, or such were so scattered, as to give little obstruction to the growth of their corn and other vegetables ; and by the process of girdling, could be removed by decay in a few years. Such were their planting grounds upon our rivers. Upon the sea-coast, they were under the necessity of clearing their lands and destroyed trees by girdling and burning. The trees were so thick, and so interwoven with vines and underbrush, that a fire set in the proper season, was almost sure to clear the ground sufficiently for Indian cultivation. If some monarch oak re- mained unscathed, the shell-knife of the squaw inflicted upon
39
AGRICULTURE, IMPLEMENTS AND PRODUCTS.
it the deadly girdle, and deprived of its sap, it decayed with equal certainty.
The soil was dug up with the axe and hoe. The axe or hatchet, called the tomhegun or tomahawk, was made at first of wood, and afterwards of granite or slate, and had a groove cut around it near the head-instead of an eye, and which held the handle.
The handle was a mere withe, or sapling, so pliant as to be bent around the axe, in this groove, and was then fastened or tied with the roots of the spruce, or with the sinews of ani- mals. They sometimes formed their hatchet handles by a more slow, but surer process. They selected a small, straight hick- ory, oak, or other tough sapling of the proper size, and splitting it as it stood, thrust the stone axe through the cleft till the parts closed around the axe, in the groove made for that purpose. They there left it till such time as the sapling, in its growth, enclosed the axe firmly within its wood. The sapling was then cut at the proper length, and fashioned into shape accord- ing to the taste and skill of the owner. With this axe, the In- dians felled their trees, cut their wood, chipped and formed stones into other axes, dug up bushes and roots, and formed the "hills" for the reception of their seed-corn and other vegeta- bles. It was their main instrument in agriculture, as well as other business, and was in use all through the tribes of Northern North America. The Micmac of Nova Scotia, used it in con- structing his canoe, and fashioning his pipe; the Iroquois of New York, in building his fort, and forming his sledge ; and the Ojibway in hammering his native copper on the Ontonagon river, or in cleaving his pipe-stone from the quarry of St. Pe- ters.
Their hoe was made of granite sometimes, and in the shape like the carpenter's adz, with the groove instead of an eye for the handle, which was fastened in like manner, with the han- dle of the axe. Their hoes were generally made of clam shells, however, fastened to stiff handles.
Their only dressing was fish. After their planting grounds became exhausted, and the location was desirable, they dressed them with fish-putting an alewife or shad to each hill of corn or other vegetable. These fish were found in abundance in planting time, in every brook or rivulet that is tributary to the Merrimack. So plentiful were they, that the women, the wives of the first settlers, shoveled them out of the brooks with fire slices and "shod-shovels," while their husbands were in the
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