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From: "Lori" <>
Subject: [MIXED-MARRIAGES] Fw: [INDIAN] Cape Cod Indians: Ch I & II
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 21:24:05 -0500
Forwarded with permission.
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Wm Sloniker" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 5:32 PM
Subject: [INDIAN] Cape Cod Indians: Ch I & II
> --------- Original message ---------
> Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:44:27 -0400
> From: Jane Mercier <>
> To:
> Subject: [MABARNST] Cape Cod Indians
>
> Mercier, Jane
>
>
> The following is taken from a series of articles published in
> the INDEPENDENT, commencing on May 16, 1928.
>
> *********************************************************************
>
> HISTORY AND LEGENDS OF THE CAPE COD INDIANS
> by one of their descendants
>
> INTRODUCTION
>
> For years, the writer has been trying to discover the origin of the
> American Indian. Naturally the origin of the Cape Cod Indian was the
> same as the rest of his race. No records have been kept to prove
> anything, and very few legends deal to a very great extent with this
> matter. The Cape Indians did have a legend similar to other people
> dealing with an eastward migration in ages past, which leads us to
> believe that these Indians were driven here by Indians in the west.
> However, it is a positive fact that all Indians of the United States
> had the same common ancestry as all the other nations who were
> formerly inhabitants of North and South America.
>
> There are many theories dealing with this matter and many different
> views expressed regarding it. Nevertheless, it is a well known fact
> that these Indians in New England were once one people, who, as
> population increased, became separated into various tribes.
>
> Many partly understand their conditions and form of government. But
> those who do, including the educated Indian of today, know only the
> "white man's side" of the story, as there has been no written word
> left by the ancient redskin.
>
> However, I am endeavoring to combine the legends, the stories of the
> white man and the Indian history since 1620, as told by those Indians
> whose facts were not obtained from books, but handed down from one
> generation to another by word of mouth. By combining those facts
> with histories, especially some written about one hundred years ago,
> by well informed authors, I believe I have secured at last the long
> missing, complete story of the Indian not only of Cape Cod, but also
> Bristol and Plymouth Counties and even eastern Rhode Island.
>
> RED SHELL
> Cape Cod Indian Historian
>
> *********************************************************************
>
> CHAPTER ONE
>
> THE NEW ENGLAND TRIBES
>
> East of the Mississippi River, 300 years ago, were four divisions of
> Indians. In each division were a number of tribes. Each division had
> a language, mode of dress and various customs of its own, while every
> tribe had a dialect of its own of the division language. However,
> there were no chiefs over the divisions, they being composed solely of
> tribes who were similar to each other. Each tribe, however, had its
> chief sachem and at every village was a mugwomp or captain who ruled
> that individual village.
>
> The four divisions were namely: Cherokee, Muskhogee, Iroquois and
> Algonquin. The Muskhogee were the most southerly, and the Cherokee
> also dwelt in the south. The Iroquois were the most powerful and
> strange to say, their territory was smaller than the others. They
> were composed of the famous six nations, their territory being now
> the states of New York and Pennsylvania. The territory now Canada,
> Nova Scotia, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode
> Island and Connecticut was all occupied by the Algonquin tribes. The
> New England Algonquins were in two divisions, namely the Tarratines
> and Mohicaneuks. The Tarratines, or Etetchemins, were ancestors of
> the present day Passamoquoddy tribe, near Eastport, Maine, as well
> as the Penobscot tribe, near Old Town, Maine.
>
> The Mohicaneuks were traditional ancestors of the Penacook,
> Massachusetts Nipmuc, Mohican, Pequot, Narrangansett and Wampanoag
> tribes.
>
> The Penacook Indian tribe lived in the southeastern part of what
> is now New Hampshire. Long before white men visited that region,
> Passaconaway was chief of the Penacooks. So great was he, and so
> powerful, that at one time he was called the "Bashaba of Mohicaneuk"
> and was supreme ruler, not only of the Penacooks, but the other six
> tribes as well. He was the greatest medicine man and conjurer known
> among the Indians of New England. Passaconaway lived to be well over
> 120 years old, dying about 1660. Legend has it that he never died,
> but embarked in a canoe, to be last seen floating westward and upward
> through the clouds, far above the mountains of New Hampshire.
>
> The Massachusetts Indians were always a small tribe from time unknown.
> Their tribal name was derived from massi, "great", achooset, "hilly
> place". They were known by several names, according to their place
> of residence, as Shawmuts, Neponsets, Naticks, etc. Their last name
> was Ponkapoag, meaning "dry pond", and named for a pond near their
> last settlement. The last chief of this tribe was Jeremiah Bancroft,
> who died in 1924.
>
> The Niantics were a tribe closely related to the Narragansetts, and
> sometimes called a part of the latter. King Tom Ninigret was the
> most noted of the chiefs, being related to the Narragansetts by
> marriage and not by blood. Chief George Ammons of the Niantic
> and Narragansett Indians was thought to be the last descendant of
> Ninigret and the last hereditary chief of those tribes. He died
> in 1924 in the woods of South County, Rhode Island. Narragansett
> is derived from Nahiganeuk of "people of the point".
>
> *********************************************************************
>
> CHAPTER II
>
> Who are these People?
>
> Almost every person native of the Cape knows some Indians resident
> here, but they know little of the history surrounding them. There
> are Indians scattered throughout Cape Cod from Herring Pond to
> Provincetown. Those at Herring Pond call themselves Pondville
> Indians. What do they know of their tribal history? Those at Mashpee
> call themselves Mashpee Indians, while some call themselves Nausets,
> some Pequots. But do they know who their real ancestors were? Do
> they know their tribal history, down from 1620 to the present day?
> I must say they know little of it!! And what about those people of
> Indian descent who live within the confines of the town of Barnstable,
> and the towns of Yarmouth, Brewster or Chatham? Do they know who
> they are? They know they are Indians and that is all.
>
> The story is a long one. It deals with the days when white men were
> unknown on this continent, as well as the present time, and proves to
> the student of these people that they are no better off in some ways
> then 308 years ago.
>
> Most historians call every settlement, every Indian village, a
> distinct tribe -with a distinct ruler of it. They speak of their
> being originally some fifteen tribes resident on Cape Cod. It is
> true there were that number of villages, but was every one a distinct
> tribe with its own individual form of government? In reply to that I
> will ask you, is the town of Sandwich today a distinct state or
> country, independent from the officials of other communities?
> Readily you would answer, "it is Not!"
>
> In much that same way was the Indian form of government based. They
> had their towns, their governors, their rulers and their country,
> similar to our country of today.
>
> Is there today, or was there ever, according to Indian lore and
> tradition, according to the laws of the people resident here before
> the year 1600 any such thing as the Pondville "tribe?" The Mashpee
> "tribe?"
>
> No, and the reason that the Indians of today call themselves by those
> names is simply because of the place in which they reside. Because a
> person lives on Cape Cod does not tend to make him a member of a
> separate government from the people resident of Boston or those
> resident in Chicago. On that same principal, but on a much smaller
> scale, was the government of those original people formed.
>
> Every Indian village on Cape Cod consisted of a people, each and
> every one a member of one and the same tribe. This tribe did not,
> however, live just on Cape Cod, but all the way to Narragansett Bay.
>
> Imagine a country by itself, with one supreme ruler. Imagine that
> the western boundary of this country ran from the northeast corner
> of Narragansett Bay in eastern Rhode Island, in an irregular line
> northeasterly to the shores of Massachusetts Bay, near the present
> Boston. Then imagine that all the territory east of that boundary to
> the tip of Cape Cod, the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard
> were included in this territory. If you can imagine this as being a
> country with a supreme ruler and some forty or fifty villages in it,
> then you can imagine the little country which was here when the
> Pilgrims landed.
>
> This great Indian tribe, in some half a hundred scattered settle-
> ments, on and off Cape Cod, called themselves Pokanok. This name
> was derived from pet-ok-a-nok, meaning "people of the bays." Many
> historians, including the illustrious Reverend William Apes, have
> confused the name Pokanok with Pequot, thinking both to be one and
> the same tribe, although today many Pokanok descendants have a strain
> of Pequot, Ponkapoag, Penacook, or some other tribe in their blood.
> However, Indian tribes often intermarried. Had a Pokanok Indian
> journeyed to the place now eastern Connecticut and married a Pequot,
> then lived there according to tradition and Indian law and lore, he
> would have become an adopted Pequot and his children Pequot after
> him. But should a Pequot Indian leave his tribe, which dwelt in that
> region and journey to Cape Cod or other part of Pokanok territory,
> and wed a native Indian of this region, he would always be of Pequot
> descent, yet he would at once become a member of the Pokanoks, and
> his children would not be Pequots, although the blood of those people
> were in their veins, but Pokanoks.
>
> Now, these Indians, resident of Cape Cod and surrounding territory,
> called themselves Pokanoks, meaning "people of the bays." The name
> of the tribal territory or country, of the Pokanoks was Pokanoket,
> from petok-ninok-et, which means "place of the people of the bays."
> The people resident where Cape Cod now is were also Pokanoks and the
> Cape was a part of the Pokanoket country. This point of land was not
> then called Cape Cod, but the Pokanoks, both on and off the Cape,
> called it Nauset, or "place of the bend."The water inside of this
> bend, now Cape Cod Bay, they called nai-sun-ket-og, meaning "bay
> within the bending place." The main village of the Cape Cod Pokanoks
> was called Nauset, as the sagamoh, or division leader, lived there.
> All the fourteen villages on the lower Cape, from Bass River to the
> present Provincetown, were his subjects, but he in turn was, with all
> other division leaders and with all others either under or over him,
> one of the subjects of the supreme ! ruler of all Pokanoks.
>
> To the west of the Pokanok tribe were the Nipmucs, Narragansetts,
> Pequots and Mohegans. These tribes called the Pokanok Wampanoags, or
> waban-noak, meaning "easterners", or "people of the east." Waban,
> from which wampan is derived, means "east," and noak is "they live"
> making the name "they live east (of us)." By that name the Pokanoks
> were known to the Pilgrims and other early settlers as the "great
> Wampanoag nation."
>
> When the Pilgrims landed in 1620, the chief of these people was
> Ousamequin, or "Yellow Feather." His home, and naturally head-
> quarters, was on Narragansett Bay, at a place called Sowams. It is
> estimated that there were almost seventy thousand members of this
> great tribe then.
>
> In the native Indian dialect the words Massi-sowet mean "great
> chief", and that was the name given to the supreme ruler of all
> Pokanoks, or Wampanoags - whichever one chooses to call them. The
> term sagamoh meant "second chief", and denoted the leaders of the
> divisions - Mattakeese and Nauset on Cape Cod; Nope at Martha's
> Vineyard, Nantucket, Seconet, Pocasset, and one or two others. The
> name Mugwomp signifed "captain" - the ruler (or chief) of an
> individual Indian village. Some mugwomps and sagamohs were the
> Massi-sowet's councillors, or leaders on the war path.
>
> Besides these various chiefs were a class of men called poh-wohs, or
> "medicine men," who were a combination of doctor and magician. Many
> wonderful cures they made among their tribesmen with roots, seeds,
> barks, berries, flowers and herbs, as well as snakeskins, snake-oils,
> bear's liniment, and various other forms of Indian medicines. They
> were great doctors of blood, believing earnestly the age-old theory
> that "blood is life." Their conjurers or magicians were much on the
> type of the present day stage magicians, and tradition has it that
> some of the original redskin magicians could out-do Houdini, Tarbell,
> Thurston or any of the other famous magicians of our day.
>
> The braves or warriors of the tribe were called Sannaps, the boys
> nah-pum-pah-soo, the women squaws, and girls pee-squa-soo.
>
> All in their various communities, under the leadership of their
> mugwomps, sagamohs and massi-soet...the first government of Cape Cod.
>
> *********************************************************************
>
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