COLONIAL NEW ENGLAND

Role: Native American- Wampanoag Tribe

Table of Contents

Video Introduction Wampanoag Tribe

Home Clothes Food

Recipe for Sobaheg Life Crafts

Resources

Wampanoag's and the First Thanksgiving

Introduction

Wuneekeesuq! That means “good day” in Wampanoag. My name is Wamsutta and I am a 9-year-old Wampanoag boy. I live near the Providence, Rhode Island settlement and would be glad to tell you about my tribe and daily life.

Wampanoag Tribe

Wampanoag means "easterners.“ We pronounce it WAWM-pah-NAW-ahg, but you can also say wamp-a-NO-ag or WAMP-ah-nog ("wamp" rhymes with "stomp.")

My tribe lives in the area that European colonists call Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

To get out on fishing trips or other longer river trips, we use dugout canoes, but we walk usually, to traveling over land.

Wampanoag Timeline

1500s - First European contact1614 - Several Wampanoag’s kidnapped and sold in Spain as slaves1620 - Mayflower lands at Plymouth Rock1621 - Massasoit helps sign treaty of future Plymouth Plantation for

English1632 - Narragansett’s attack Wampanoag village1640 - John Eliot and other Puritan missionaries start “converting”

native peoples1643 - Mohegan’s defeat Narragansett’s1661 - Massasoit dies, but first petitions for English names for his two

sons (Wamsutta=> Alexander Metacomet=>Phillip)1671 - Metacomet aka “King Phillip” called for “talks” by English, due

to his gathering tribesmen together for defense1675-76 - King Phillip’s War1678 - Peace treaties signed between English and the new decimated

Wampanoag tribe (only 400 Wampanoag survived)

Home

Have a look around my village! Our homes are called wigwams or wetus. They can be cone, dome, or rectangular shaped. Sometimes

they are called birchbark

houses, as they are made

of a wooden frame, covered with either strips of birch bark or woven mats. This is what my house looks like:

Home

My tribe actually lives near the ocean only during the summer and spring, and during the fall we live in the forests and valleys. This is because we plant and fish during the warm times, and live more off of the forest animals and foraged food from the forests during the cold times.

When the Europeans came, it served my island tribe members well to be on the islands, as epidemics caused a lot of sickness and death from 1610-1620. Now, in 1675, only 1,000 Wampanoag tribe members survive on the mainland.

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Mainland

Island

Wampanoag Population

Clothes

Women in my tribe typically wear knee length skirts, and men wear breechcloth and leggings. Usually, neither wear shirts, though we do use deerskin mantles during the winter months, when it is cold. We also wear moccasins.

Wompanoag

Clothing

Breechcloth and

leggings

Skirt Moccasins Optional deerskin mantles

Men + + +

Women + + +

Food

My mother and the other women harvest corn, squash and beans. The men hunted for deer, turkeys, and small game and fishing canoes. The other children and I collect foods like berries, nuts and herbs.

75%

25%

Wompanoag Food Gathering

Food provided by women and childrenFood provided by men

Recipe for a Turkey Sobaheg

I love to eat my mother’s stew (sobaheg is our word for stew) and cornbread! She was says that you can have the recipe, if you would like to try it yourself.

½ pound dry beans (white, red, brown, or spotted kidney-shaped beans)

½ pound yellow samp or coarse grits

1 pound turkey meat (legs or breast, with bone and skin)

3 quarts cold water

¼ pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch lengths

½ pound winter squash, trimmed and cubed

½ cup raw sunflower seed meats, pounded to a coarse flour

1. Combine dried beans, corn, turkey, and water in a large pot. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, turn down to a very low simmer, and cook for about 2 ½ hours. Stir occasionally to be certain that the bottom is not sticking.

2. When dried beans are tender, but not mushy, break up turkey meat, removing skin and bones. Add green beans and squash, and simmer very gently until they are tender.

3. Add sunflower flour, stirring until thoroughly blended.

My life

I am learning how to fish, hunt, gather and work on small crafts. We also learn about the animals, the plant life. My parents teach me, as do the elders, who tell us the sacred stories. We believe that it is important to work together as a People and to respect all life as sacred.

Some of the younger children play with cornhusk dolls, but my favorite thing to “play” with is my bow and arrow, which helps me to practice for when I will hunt on my own to feed my family and village.

Wampanoag Crafts

My tribe is known for making wampum. We also create beautiful beadwork, weave baskets, and woodcarving.

Wampum is worked with white and purple shell beads. This is what some wampum work might look like:

Wampum beads are traded as a type of currency (money), but it is most more important to us culturally as an art material.

Resources

Info on Wampanoag Tribe: http://www.bigorrin.org/wampanoag_kids.htm

Sobaheg Recipe: http://plimoth.org/discover/recipes/sobaheg.php

Wampanoag History: http://tolatsga.org/wampa.html

Info on the Gay Head Wampanoag tribe: http://www.ygtu.com/Wampanoag-Tribe-of-Gay-Head-Aquinnah-of-Massachusetts

Traditional Wompanoag and Colonial Dinners: http://www.plimoth.org/kids/homeworkHelp/dinner.php

Map of Native American Territories in New England: http://pokanoket.us/graphics/Tribal_Territories_Southern_New_England.png

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