Footnotes/Further Reading
Footnote # 1
Trudie Lamb Richmond, a Schaghticoke elder, and anthropologist Russell Handsman have encouraged the use of the term "homelands" to encompass all of the sites where individual and communal tribal activities – physical and spiritual – take place within a familiar ecosystem over time. See Handsman and Richmond "Confronting Colonialism: The Mahican and Schaghticoke Peoples and Us," 1996. Also see Gordon Day "The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northern Forest" (1953) in the volume In Search of New England's Native Past 1998.
Footnote # 2
The debate over Iroquois origins has concerned whether these tribes emerged in situ or migrated into the northeast. The earliest excavated gravesites in Iroquoian territories show evidence of extensive warfare, torture, and ritual cannibalism – evidence that does not appear in sites of the same age in New England. Iroquoian traditions recount that a period of extreme warfare was the motivation for the foundation of the Iroquois Confederacy or League. For a general overview of origin theories and similarities and differences between Iroquois and Algonkian peoples, see James Fitting, "Regional Cultural Development" and Dean Snow "Late Prehistory of the East Coast," both in the Smithsonian Handbook, Volume 15: Northeast, 1978.
Footnote # 3
For a discussion of Algonkian/Algonquian languages and a brief review of inter-tribal relationships, see Ives Goddard "Eastern Algonquian Languages," and Ted J. Brasser, "Early Indian-European Contacts," both in Smithsonian Handbook 1978, and Ives Goddard, "Introduction," in HNAI Vol. 17 (1996). For an overview of the Wabanaki Confederacy, see Frederick Wiseman The Voice of the Dawn 2001. The Native peoples of the upper Connecticut River valley, and across all of Vermont and New Hampshire, are generally considered to be Abenaki or "Wabanaki," which are both modern spellings of "peoples of the eastern lands." There is little evidence for what broad cultural term, if any, the Connecticut River valley peoples used to identify themselves. They were all linguistically and culturally related, they joined forces with the Wabanaki in attacking Connecticut River valley towns during the French and Indian wars, and they all contributed to the founding populations of Odanak, a Wabanaki refugee village in Canada ( See Gordon Day The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians 1981 for a full discussion of the peopling of Odanak or St. Francis). Thus, we have grouped them together under the broad heading of "Wôbanakiak," using a more linguistically accurate spelling for the actual term "people of the eastern lands," for the purposes of this website.
Footnote # 4
There is considerable debate about the precise date for the founding of the Iroquois League. Several of the oral traditions point to the occurence of a solar eclipse shortly before the event. Based on that evidence, some historians have dated the founding of the Confederacy to 1451 C.E. (A.D.), while others, combining solar eclipse data with family lineages, suggest that it dates to a different eclipse in 1142 C.E. See Bruce E. Johansen "Dating the Iroquois Confederacy" in Akwesasne Notes 1995:62. Also see Elisabeth Tooker, "The League of the Iroquois: Its History, Politics and Ritual," Smithsonian Handbook 1978. For an overview of oral traditions of the Iroquois Confederacy, see Paul Wallace White Roots of Peace 1986.
Footnote # 5
For an account of how the Wendat (Huron) were conquered by the Iroquois, see Conrad Heidenreich "Huron" Smithsonian Handbook 1978.368-388. The Iroquois Confederacy expanded to Six Nations in 1722 when they were joined by the [Tuscarora].
Footnote # 6
For discussions of Algonkian seasonality, movement, and flexibility in general, see George Nicholas, "A Light but Lasting Footprint" in The Archaeological Northeast 1999, and Dean Snow "Late Prehistory of the East Coast," in Smithsonian Handbook Volume 15: Northeast 1978. For an introduction to ways in which Algonkian peoples negotiated personal and tribal relationships to each other and the land, see Handsman and Richmond "Confronting Colonialism: The Mahican and Schaghticoke Peoples and Us," 1996.
Footnote # 7
For discussions of Wôbanaki technology, hunting practices, and some glances at particular aspects of traditional knowledge, see Frank Speck Penobscot Man 1940. Speck also collected a large number of oral traditions that discuss appropriate hunting and fishing practices through the activities of mythological characters. For a contemporary view of Wôbanaki traditions, see Frederick Wiseman The Voice of the Dawn 2001.
Footnote # 8
George Nicholas, in "A Light and Lasting Footprint" in The Archaeological Northeast 1999, and Elizabeth Chilton, in "Towns They Have None" in Northeast Subsistence-Settlement Change 2002, each discuss common misinterpretations of Algonkian seasonal occupations. For an example of the ease with which Algonkian peoples could relocate, Roger Williams observed, of the Narragansett in Rhode Island:
In the middle of summer...they will flie and remove on a sudden from one part of their field to a fresh place...Sometimes they remove to a hunting house in the end of the year...but their great remove is from their Summer fields to warme and thick woodie bottoms where they winter: They are quicke; in a halfe a day, yea, sometimes a few houres warning to be gone and the house up elsewhere.
Williams [1643] 1963:135.
Footnote # 9
For a discussion of how landscape traditions relate to local geography, see Margaret Bruchac "Earthshapers and Placemakers" in Indigenous Archaeologies 2004. As one example of an earthshaper tradition in the Connecticut River valley, the hills now known as the "Pocumtuck Range," were called, by Pocumtuck people, "Pemawatchuwatunck," meaning "long, twisting mountain," and were said to be the remains of a giant beaver. The beaver's pond that once flooded the valley is now called, by geologists, "Glacial Lake Hitchcock." Phinehas Field recorded part of the story as follows:
I herewith furnish you with a record of such traditions as are distinct in my recollection, relating to the Indians…The Great Beaver, whose pond flowed over the whole basin of Mt. Tom, made havoc among the fish...A pow-wow was held and Hobomock raised... With a great stake in hand, he waded the river until he found the beaver, and so hotly chased him that he sought to escape by digging into the ground. Hobomock saw his plan and his whereabouts, and with his great stake jammed the beaver's head off. The earth over the beaver's head we call Sugarloaf, his body lies just to the north of it.
Field 1890:63.
Footnote # 10
Traditional Algonkian peoples, in general, and Wabanaki peoples, in particular, view themselves as inseparable from the land and other living beings.
Our life began with the creation and transformation of this land, passed down to countless generations in the oral tradition. For those of us from Missisquoi and other Western Abenaki places, we were made near Bitawbagok, Lake Champlain, by Tabaldak: the Creator on aki, the earth. We were created out of the wood of a tree that still thrives here. We have always been here, kin to the ancient forests.
Robtoy, Brightstar, Obomsawin and Moody, 1994:29.
Footnote # 11
For a detailed discussion of how Algonkian peoples intentionally altered the forest ecosytem, see Gordon Day "The Indian as an Ecological Factor in the Northern Forest" (1953) in the volume In Search of New England's Native Past 1998. Day cites two out of many examples of first-person observation of Native forest management:
The Salvages are accustomed, to set fire of the Country in all places where they come; and to burn it, twize a yeare, vixe at the Springe, and the fall of the leafe. The reason that mooves them to doe so, is because it would other wise be so overgrowne with underweedes, that it would be all a copice wood, and the people would not be able in any wise to pass through the Country. (Thomas Morton 1632)
...it being the custom of the Indians to burne the wood in November, when the grasse is withered, and leaves dryed, it consumes all the underwood, and rubbish, which otherwise would over grow the Country, making it unpassable, and spoil their much affected hunting...(William Wood 1634).
Footnote # 12
Several historians and anthropologists, including Lynn Ceci, have suggested that Native peoples learned the use of fish as fertilizer from Europeans. The Wampanoag historian Nanapashemet effectively countered that theory with his article "It Smells Fishy to Me: An Argument Supporting the Use of Fish Fertilizer by the Native People of Southern New England," in Algonkians of New England: Past and Present, 1993.
Footnote # 13
For examples of Wabanaki greeting ceremonies, see Frank Speck Penobscot Man 1940. For some examples of how various Algonkian traditions have persisted into the present, see Ann McMullen "What's Wrong With This Picture? Context, Coversion, Survival, and the Development of Regional Cultures and Pan-Indianism in Southeastern New England," in Enduring Traditions 1994.
Footnote # 14
For a more comprehensive discussion of the comparisons between Native and non-Native uses of land, and the complexities of colonial encounters, see Colin Calloway New Worlds for All 1997.
Footnote # 15
See Elisabeth Tooker, "The League of the Iroquois: Its History, Politics and Ritual," Smithsonian Handbook 1978, and Paul Wallace, The Iroquois Book of Life: White Roots of Peace 1986.
Footnote # 16
For Native peoples, the "Three Sisters" analogy refers to the origin stories of the plants themselves, the horticultural practice of interplanting them, and their symbiotic biological relationship: "Corn [Zea mays] supplies support for the beans, and the squash provides weed control through ground cover," and "Rhizobial symbionts [beans] fix atmospheric nitrogen and make it available to squash and corn, which lack this ability." For Haudenosaunee/Iroquois peoples in particular, corn is more than just a food staple; it is situated at the center of religious and cultural beliefs and practices. See Carol Cornelius Iroquois Corn in a Culture-Based Curriculum 1999:109.
Footnote # 17
For discussions of how Iroquois societies relied on traditional cultural models to respond and adapt to colonization, see Elisabeth Tooker, "Iroquois Since 1820" in Smithsonian Handbook 1978, Gerald Alfred Heeding the Voice of Our Ancestors 1995, and Carol Cornelius, Iroquois Corn in a Culture-Based Curriculum 1999.
Footnote # 18
For a full discussion of the relationships among the different clans, see Tom Porter, Clanology: Clan System of the Iroquois 1993.
Footnote # 19
As an example of a thanksgiving address, see "Seneca Thanksgiving Address" by Chief Corbett Sundown, Tonowanda Seneca 1959, in Cornelius 1999. It reads, in part:
And now this is what Our Creator did: he decided, "I shall establish the earth, on which the people will move about. The new people, too, will be taking their places on the earth. And there will always be a relationship when they want to refer to the earth: they will always say 'our mother, who supports our feet.'"...And therefore let there be gratitude, for we believe that she has indeed done all that she was obligated to do.
Sundown, in Cornelius 1999:204.
Footnote # 20
I grant they are all wthin ye line of yr pattent, but you cannot say that therefore they are yr subjects nor yet within yr jurisdiction untill they have fully subjected themselves to yr government (wch I know they have not) & untill you have bought their land: untill this be done they must be esteemed as an Independant free people, & so they of Naunotak do all account themselves, & doubtless wch ever goes with strength of men to disturb their peace at Naunotuk they will take it for no other than a hostile action...
William Pynchon to Governor John Winthrop, May 5, 1648, in Temple 1887:37 38.
Footnote # 21
Fur trader and land speculator John Pynchon agreed to plow fields for the Nonotuck sachem Umpanchela as follows:
Pynchon shall plow up or cause to be plowed up for the Indians sixteene acres of land on ye east side of Quinnoticott River which is to be done sometyme next Summer 1654 & in the meane tyme vizt the next Spring 1654 the Indians have liberty to plant their present corn fields...
Wright 1905:27.
Footnote # 22
The original deed from Chauk, dated February 24, 1666, is in the possession of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield, MA. It reads, in part:
These presents Testifie That Chauk alias Chaque the Sachem of Pacomtuck for good & valluable Considerations him thereunto moveing, hath Given, Granted, Bargained & sold, & by these presents Doth (for himself & his Brother Wapahoale,) . . . Certain parsells of Land at Pacomtuck on ye further side or upper side or North side of Pacomtuck1 River. . . only the sd Chauk alias Chaque doth reserve Liberty of fishing for ye Indians in ye Rivers or waters & free Liberty to hunt deere or other wild creatures, & to gather walnuts chestnuts & other nuts things &c on ye Commons.
Footnote # 23
See Colin Calloway New Worlds for All 1997 and Ted J. Brasser, "Early Indian-European Contacts" in Smithsonian Handbook 1978.
Footnote # 24
See a discussion of how trading rivalries contributed to inter-tribal warfare in Ted J. Brasser, "Early Indian-European Contacts" in Smithsonian Handbook 1978.
Footnote # 25
For a discussion of traditional Mohican/Mahican lifeways, their interactions with the Dutch, and their subsequent subservient position under the Iroquois, see Ted J. Brasser "Mahican" 1978. The Algonkian peoples of the Connecticut River valley were particularly eager to trade with the Dutch for guns that the English refused to sell to them.
Bridenbaugh 1985:52.
Footnote # 26
For an Abenaki perspective on the Seven Nations alliance, see Frederick Wiseman The Voice of the Dawn 2001. Also see Alain Beaulieu and Roland Viau. The Great Peace: Chronicle of a Diplomatic Saga 2001.
Footnote # 27
See Gordon Day The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians 1981 for a full discussion of the peopling of Odanak or St. Francis. See Colin Calloway The Western Abenaki 1990. Also see David Stewart-Smith, who, in his dissertation "The Pennacook Indians and the New England Frontier" 1998, classifies the New Hampshire tribes as "Central Abenaki." For a critique of the term "Western Abenaki," see Nicholas N. Smith and Alice Nash, "La linguistique liturgique du père Aubéry : Aperçu ethnohistorique," trans. Nicole Beaudry. Recherches amérindiennes au Québec 33/2 (2003): 7-17.
Footnote # 28
For a discussion of Native dynamics in Puritan praying villages, see Neal Salisbury "Red Puritans: The 'Praying Indians' of Massachusetts Bay and John Eliot" in William and Mary Quarterly 1974.
Footnote # 29
See Diane Fisk Bray "Change and Continuity of Spritual Practice among the Chaubunagungamaug Nipmuck Indians of Webster, Massachusetts," in Algonkians of New England: Past and Present 1993.
Footnote # 30
As just one example, the Mohegan Church of Montville, or Uncasville, Connecticut, is said to be a place where "An eagle feather has always hung above the cross." (Fawcett 1995:47) Also see Ann McMullen "What's Wrong With This Picture? Context, Coversion, Survival, and the Development of Regional Cultures and Pan-Indianism in Southeastern New England," in Enduring Traditions 1994.
Footnote # 31
For accounts of the founding and relocation of the Kanienkehaka village of Kahnawake, see E. J. Devine, Historic Caughnawaga 1922 and Gerald Alfred Heeding the Voice of Our Ancestors 1995. For accounts of the various changes in location and population of the Abenaki village of Odanak, see Gordon Day The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians 1981.
Footnote # 32
For a detailed discussion of Wabanaki gender roles in the post-European contact era, see Alice Nash "The Abiding Frontier" 1997.
Footnote # 33
Odanak, for example, saw frequent movement of members of various tribes and bands from New England in and out of the village between the late 17th and mid-19th century, before the population started to stabilize. It went through another shift during the early 20th century, when many people moved back to the US to find work. See Gordon Day The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians 1981.
Footnote # 34
The Abenaki at Missisquoi (now Swanton, Vermont) responded to colonization by asserting land ownership in the English model – several Abenaki families leased a parcel of land to James Robertson at Missisquoi Bay, "for the space of ninety one years from the 28th day of May, 1765" for the construction of a sawmill, with yearly rent to be paid, in part, by plowing "as much land for each of the above persons as shall be sufficient for them to plant their Indian corn each year." Vermont land speculators Ira and Ethan Allen ignored Native sovereignty when they formed the "Onion River Land Company" in 1773, and sold Missisquoi Abenaki lands without deed or title (Calloway 1990:206, 225). Also see David Stewart-Smith "The Pennacook Indians and the New England Frontier, circa 1604-1733," 1998, for a discussion of Pennacook strategies.
Footnote # 35
The Canadian government still grants Abenaki people free passage across the border to live and work, but the US government and the state of Vermont have yet to formally recognize their sovereign rights. For the history behind this split, see Gordon Day, "The Indian Occupation of Vermont" 1955 and The Identity of the Saint Francis Indians 1981. For a more contemporary rendering of Missisquoi Abenaki history and politics, see Frederick Wiseman The Voice of the Dawn 2001.
Footnote # 36
See Elisabeth Tooker, "Iroquois Since 1820" in Smithsonian Handbook 1978; Tom Porter, Clanology: Clan System of the Iroquois, 1993; and Gerald Alfred Heeding the Voice of Our Ancestors 1995.
Footnote # 37
See Ann McMullen "What's Wrong With This Picture? Context, Coversion, Survival, and the Development of Regional Cultures and Pan-Indianism in Southeastern New England," in Enduring Traditions 1994.