Harold Titus's Blog, page 32

Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Character Traits

Having introduced Alsoomse and Wanchese as my two protagonists and presented a bit of their family history (See “Writing Alsoomse and Wanchese – First Chapter”), I exhibit in chapters two and three several of their character traits.


Alsoomse tells a traditional Algonquian story with certain embellishments to her two 16 year old friends Nana and Odina and their young sisters Pules and Wapun, ages 11 and 12. Alsoomse, Nana, and Odina are grinding corn kernels into flour, each girl using her family’s large stone mortar and pestle. Pules and Wapun are cracking open walnut shells, centering each shell in the depression of a nutting stone and striking it with a flat-edged rock. Alsoomse’s story entertains them as they prepare what is to become bread, which will supplement the day’s main meal. Here are excerpts of Alsoomse’s story.

Alsoomse turned toward Pules and Wapun. Pointing toward the mainland, she said: “Long ago, but not so long ago, monsters walked this land. Windagos, giant cannibals, half human, would hide next to deer paths behind thick pine and cedar branches, waiting to snatch children! Catching two or three, the monster tied their arms and legs with vines.” Alsoomse leaned closer. “Imagine.” She paused, mesmerizing Pules with her eyes. “Outside the cave where he lived the Windago built a great fire. Using more vines, he tied each child to a tree limb. He placed the far end of one of the limbs on top of a high stump. Walking around the fire holding the other end, he brought the tied-up child, a boy, over the fire where he slowly roasted him! When he was cooked, …” She made a loud gnawing sound.

Wapun laughed.

Alsoomse shook her head, pointed her right forefinger. “Their parents, wondering where their children had gone, would go looking for them. Sometimes, if the Windagos were still hungry, they snatched the parents and roasted them, too!” Alsoomse’s face conveyed absolute gravity.

Seated behind Wapun, Nana suddenly stiffened. In two quick motions she raised her right hand and pointed. “Isn’t that … one of them behind those trees?!”

Wapun twisted about.

Nana giggled.

“Not funny.” Wapun glared. “I wasn’t afraid.”

…

Alsoomse pressed her pestle against her corn kernels. She smiled. “One grinding motion with each sentence,” she said. “All of you. Ready?” She watched them position their pestles over their mortars.

“The people in all the villages were miserable. Something had to be done.” She pressed down with her pestle. The others obeyed. “Fortunately, they worshiped the sun. Because the great Sun Father liked them, he decided to help them.” She pressed. Watching them, satisfied, she continued. “He changed himself into a handsome hunter, came down out of the sky, and married a beautiful woman from the North.”

Pules raised her head. “Where the Weapomeoc live?”

Alsoomse shook her head. “Much farther north.”

…

“The beautiful woman gave birth to twin boys. Handsome boys, very brave. They grew very fast; and then, suddenly, they stopped growing. They grew to be no taller than you, Wapun. But they were strong, and they were very intelligent, and were full of questions.”

…

She [the boys’ mother] said they were special. Two days later she carried out of her longhouse two bows about their height and two quivers full of arrows.” Lowering her chin, Alsoomse resumed grinding. The young girls waited, their hands, grasping their pestles, idle. A drift of smoke temporarily encircled them.

“Why?” Pules exclaimed.

“She told them that their father had left the bows and arrows for her to give to them. Then he had gone away. They were to use them when they became old enough. She went into her long house and brought out several magic rabbit sticks. ‘Take these also and use them but only if you have to,’ she told them.”

“Rabbit sticks? What are rabbit sticks?”

“Sticks covered with rabbit fur,” Alsoomse answered, straining to keep her mouth small.

“Why would anybody want to put rabbit fur on sticks?” Wapun frowned. “You are making this up.”

Alsoomse shrugged. “All I know is that the great Sun Father thought there should be fur on them. You see, there was magic in the fur. Time for two more grinds.” She bore down with her pestle, moved it in a semi-circle.

When the others had complied, she resumed. “The boys wanted to go hunting. Their mother told them to stay far away from the monster animals that could swallow them. ‘And stay away from Windagos! You are just the right size to roast!’ So …” Alsoomse raised her hands, palms up, lifted them to shoulder level. “Being boys, they thought they were all mighty, thought they could kill just about anything.”

That evening Granganimeo, Roanoke’s weroance, takes Wanchese aside to speak to him privately.

Stopping in a secluded space shrouded by thick spruce trees, close to the recently expanded burial ground, Granganimeo, arms folded across his chest, studied him. Sensing what was about to be said, Wanchese felt the beginnings of irritation.

“It is hard for me to say this about my son.” Granganimeo rotated his head. “You must not repeat what I am about to say. It is only because Wingina and I recognize you to be strong in character, skillful in providing meat, and, we believe, brave in battle – and because you are Matunaagd’s son – that I say this to you.” Granganimeo squinted, deepened the furrows etched in his forehead. “That I place my trust in you.”

Wanchese waited.

“Tihkoosue is a disappointment. Boys his age have already learned the skills of hunting. They make their own bows and arrows. They play the hoop game, they shoot at tree stumps from different distances. Eagerly! They hunt with young braves. Tihkoosue does none of this. Yet he expects to become a weroance. He expects everything to be given to him. He must be taught otherwise.”

Wanchese shifted his weight, touched briefly his dangling tobacco sack.

“You know what I want you to do, don’t you?”

Wanchese nodded. The large turkey feather, its stem inserted in the groove at the top of his forehead, bobbed.

“It will take much of your time.” Granganimeo’s crossed forearms covered the square-shaped sheet of copper that hung from his neck.

“I know he is willful,” Wanchese answered. He felt he had the right to criticize. “He will not listen to me if he does not listen to you.”
“You have my permission to make him listen. I have seen how you reject weak character. I also know that you are fair-minded. Treat my son as he deserves.”

Wanchese stretched the corners of his mouth. “I will not be easy with him.”

Wanchese and Tihkoosue go hazelwood tree trunk hunting to carve out wood to make bows. Altering Tihkoosue’s attitude and behavior is made possible by Tihkoosue’s curiosity about Wanchese’s deceased brother Kitchie, who at the age of 11 drowned attempting to navigate a canoe in the ocean. Kitchi had been five years younger than Wanchese.

He [Wanchese] knelt upon the soft earth. Reaching behind his back for his skirt waistband, he secured his tobacco sack. He removed it, untied its strings, and opened it. He poured bits of tobacco leaves into the palm of his left hand. He stood. “Tree, I thank you for giving us some of your wood. May the bows we make be strong and send our arrows fast and straight.” He sprinkled the palm’s contents judiciously around the base of the tree trunk.

Facing the boy, he said: “You must remember always to thank the trees you use and the animals you kill for their sacrifice.”

“I know that!”

Wanchese ignored the petulance. Using his knife, he commenced to cut a line approximately five feet long down the tree trunk. “This takes effort,” he said, “because of the bark. You see that I hold the knife with this deerskin hide. “

“I see that!”

“Then you know the reason.”

Tihkoosue didn’t answer.

…

Wanchese finished his second vertical cut. He stood. The boy had marked half the distance of his first cut. “You are doing all right.”

“But it’s hard!”

“The hard part comes after we eat.”

Tihkoosue turned, looked at him hard. “How?”

“After we eat. Hurry up. I am hungry.” Wanchese grinned.

…

Thirty minutes later the boy had finished. Flexing the fingers of his right hand, he watched Wanchese make a fire, then build a platform of sticks over the flames to cook three moderate-sized bass he had taken from his previous day’s catch. Each was silent while they ate.

After awhile the boy asked: ”Did you do this with Kitchi?”

Wanchese felt instant pain. “Yes,” he said, tardily.

“How did he do?”

“He complained a lot.”

Wanchese remembered.

“It is hard,” Tihkoose had said. Everything is hard. It is meant to be.

...

“Was it a good bow?”

“Good enough for a boy his size. He was able to kill rabbits with it.”

“Did you take him hunting?”

“I did.”

“Is hunting hard?”

“Everything is hard the first time.” He paused, licked his fingers, reached with his knife for the unclaimed bass lying across two sticks extended two feet above the fire. “It gets easier.”

They returned to the tree trunks. “Watch me while I cut the lines deeper. As deep as the distance of your little finger. “This will be hard work. Then we wedge the wood out using these pieces of deer antler and that hard rock I brought out of the canoe. The sun will be low when we finish. You should know.”

“Did you help Kitchi?”

“Sometimes, when he asked.” Not watching him, Wanchese expected the next question. Tihkoosue didn’t speak. “He didn’t ask that much,” Wanchese answered.

Several days later Askook, a disagreeable distant cousin of Alsoomse and Wanchese and a brother of Granganimeo’s wife Hurit, joins Alsoomse’s group of friends, her first cousins Nootau and Sokanon, and Tihkoose while they finish their meal and hear the conclusion of Alsoomse’s story about the sun god’s two sons and an evil Windago. Before and during Alsoomse’s story-telling Ashkook is rude to the little girls Pules and Wapun, insults the older girls Nana and Odina, and disparages Alsoomse’s story. Alsoomse tells him that he is not welcome. “You are our cousin. Barely. You are not our friend.” Askook continues his sarcastic insults. He declares, finally, that Alsoomse’s two unattractive friends desire him to take them in their beds.

Machk, Nana’s brother, “rose to one knee. Wanchese gripped his right forearm. ‘Sit. You, also,’ he said to Askook. ‘Eat that last piece of meat.’ He pointed at the platter. ‘It might stop you playing the fool.’

Askook angled his head, glanced sideways at Wanchese. Smirking, he settled himself on the bare ground. He looked again at Wanchese, whose focus was on Nana and Odina. Alsoomse, watching closely, detected on Askook’s eyes an expression of triumph.”

Alsoomse’s story ends with the sun god’s two boys killing the Windago with the use of their magic rabbit sticks. Askook speaks.

“Too bad Kitchi didn’t have the sun god protecting him when he took his canoe out into the great waters.” His eyes and the tilt of his head revealed satisfaction. “Too bad nobody human looked after him, either.” He glanced at Wanchese.

Alsoomse watched her brother rise to his feet. For a brief moment she was frightened for Askook. She had never seen Wanchese look like this: controlled, quietly menacing, at any moment lethal.

“Get up!”

Askook stood. He brushed the back of his rear apron.

“Follow me!” Wanchese turned, walked to the center of the village lane, faced back. Askook hadn’t moved.

“Are you a coward? Do as he says!” Alsoomse said.

Askook looked at her. “I am not a coward.”

“Then, …?”

“Come with me!” Wanchese, taking long strides, disappeared past the last longhouse.

“Do not be a woman!” Alsoomse said.

Askook’s expression reflected hate. Taking less lengthy strides, he walked past the longhouse.

Wanchese was waiting for him. “Follow me.”

“Why? Where?”

Wanchese turned about, walked ahead.

They arrived at the secluded alcove of spruce branches where Granganimeo had spoken to Wanchese about Tihkoosue.

“Well?” Askook’s eyes wavered. He pressed the heels of his hands against his hip bones.

“Mind what you say. I am very close to tearing you apart.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“If I lose control, I will kill you.”

They stared at each other.

“Well, …” Askook looked away.

“You wear Wingina’s four arrows inked behind your left shoulder. That is supposed to mean something. You do not show it!”

“I am as loyal to Wingina as any man.” Askook raised his chin, tightened his legs.

“They mean we are one. We protect each other. We are not each other’s enemy.” Wanchese’s eyes bored. “But you make yourself one! You insult, you accuse, you hate.”

“I tell the truth.”

“I see a man who cares only about himself.”

“I see a man who cared so much about himself that he was never here, to watch over his brother.”

Three feet apart, bodies taut, they faced each other.

Wanchese’s biceps and shoulder muscles strained to be released. “There are two things you can choose to do.” They were the same height. Askook looked at him warily. “You can be what you are supposed to be. Or you can be our enemy and be banished.”

“Not killed?” Askook mocked.

Wanchese struck him full on the right cheek with the heel of his left hand. Askook went down, instantly. He lay still for fifteen seconds, moved his upper body, briefly groaned.

“Not yet you are!”

Askook raised himself to a sitting position. A red welt was forming. “Tearing me apart will do you no good,” he muttered.

“Tell my hands and feet that.”

“You are responsible for Kitchi’s death. That is the truth!”

Wanchese crowded him. “Why does that matter to you?”

“That is for you to find out.”

“You are no cousin of mine. Your blood and my blood are not the same. You would be wise to return to Dasemunkepeuc. Determine there your fate.”

Character traits are best revealed by characters’ actions, not by author explication.



Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- First Chapter

Every fiction writer strives in his first chapter to pique his readers’ interest. Here is the first sentence of the first chapter of my work in progress, “Alsoomse and Wanchese.”

Using her moistened scrap of deerskin, Alsoomse removed decayed skin cells from the left humerus of her mother’s skeleton.

Seventeen year old Alsoomse is preparing her mother’s skeletal remains for ossuary burial.

North Carolina Algonquian ossuary burials were conducted every several years. They were ritual reburials of the remains of loved ones who had died and been interred after the previous community ossuary burial. Historian David Leroy Oberg explains their purpose.

“Death, and the resulting grief, could disrupt a community, leaving those who mourned bereft of reason. The reburial of all who had died since the last [ossuary] ceremony served to unify the community and tie it to the land it lived upon. Whatever the differences in status in Algonquian communities, all could expect the same treatment in the end. All belonged, and all were worthy of being remembered and reintegrated after death into the village community. Ossuary burial, a ritual that required the participation of all in ways that must seem foreign to us, helped set things right, and preserved the balance between the world of the seen and the unseen, the natural and the supernatural, and the living and the dead” (Oberg 28).

Alsoomse has chosen to cleanse her mother’s bones without her cousin’s assistance. Her labor is a deeply emotional experience. She confides to her mother, Nadie, her needs, anxieties, and aspirations. “Tell me everything I have forgotten. Help me,” she declares. She asks her mother questions and imagines receiving answers.

“How do you know who to marry? How will I know who is kind?”

“What does a man like Father see in a woman’s soul?”

“Why must weroances, priests, and husbands decide who I must be?”

“How much of life’s misery is the result of the wishes of the gods?”

All the while Alsoomse labors and grieves, she begrudges the absence of her brother, Wanchese.

***

Was their mother’s final burial so unimportant? She needed him. He needed to be the worthy brother she craved.

How often he had disappointed her! Pivoting on her right knee, she stared through the stately trunks of loblolly pine toward the water’s edge hoping to glimpse a canoe approaching from Dasemunkepeuc, the village where their weroance Wingina -- Wanchese’s substitute father and mentor – mostly lived. Where Wanchese spent most of his time striving to advance himself!

***

Wanchese is indeed one of four Algonquians crossing Pamlico Sound from Dasemunkapeuc
(http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co....)

to attend the ossuary burial. The others are Wingina, the chief weroance of six mostly coastal villages including Dasemunkapeuc and Roanoke; Eracano, Wingina’s brother-in-law; and Wanchese’s disliked distant cousin, Askook. As Wanchese and Askook paddle the canoe across the Sound, Wanchese reflects upon how his father’s murder by the Pomouik (See my Oct. 16 post “Two Important Events) and the death of his brother Kitchi have affected him. He admits that he has not been supportive enough of his mother and sister.

***

How he had raged after his father’s murder! How he had imagined brutal retribution! He, fifteen, had not yet become a man! How his mother had comforted him, needing herself to be consoled. He wondered now if all her efforts to soothe him had helped her. He wanted to believe that it had!

It was after Kitchi’s death that she had needed him most. Instead, he had moped, bristled, raged. Alsoomse had loathed him. His aunt had lectured him. His best friend Osacan had tried to reason with him. Granganimeo himself had spoken to him, had then sent him across the shallow waters to his brother, Wingina, who had succeeded their uncle, Wematin, as chief weroance. Wingina had put him to work. Gradually, Wanchese had emerged from his funk. Not soon enough to show Nadie that he was worthy of her devotion.

***

About Alsoomse:

***

How much thought had he given about how she had suffered? How often had he sat beside her the past thirteen moons, he across the great waters fixated in his sphere of pain? She needed somebody better than he. She needed a husband, who would cherish and protect her.

None of his friends had showed an interest in Alsoomse. It was not that she was less desirable looking than most of the maturing girls he had seen at Roanoke or Dasemunkepeuc. What was she now, seventeen? A bit old. Opinionated. Too much a questioner. Too much the meddler. Why couldn’t she accept who she was, a female meant to do female work for her village’s benefit?

***

We learn of Wanchese’s activities away from Roanoke.

***

Living in Dasemunkepeuc, he had at Wingina’s behest traveled with two older companions to distant villages outside the weroance’s confederation to deliver and receive personal messages. He had traveled also to Secotan – his mother’s childhood village – and Aquascogooc and once to neighboring Pomeiooc, whose weroance was now challenging Wingina’s authority. Wanchese was proud of these assignments. Other braves his age native of Dasemunkepeuc were entirely capable of doing this work. “Wingina is training you,” Tetepano had told him during his, Cossine’s, and Wanchese’s recent trip to Weapemeoc. Wanchese hadn’t asked why. He knew that Wingina’s uncle, Wematin, had relied on Wanchese’s father, Matunaagd, to lead his braves in battle. Whatever his purpose, Wingina had chosen to elevate Wanchese’s status.

***

The chapter ends with Wanchese’s arrival at his aunt’s (and before her death his mother’s) longhouse.

***

Permitted to break away, Wanchese strode up the sandy bank toward the pathway that lead to the village. Shadows of pine branches moved across his bare shoulders. Drifting smoke marked his entrance to the village grounds. Up the lane separating the nine houses he hurried, oblivious of the sounds of Askook’s footfalls behind him. He saw the top of his aunt’s longhouse. Three women – Alsoomse, his aunt, and his cousin Sokanon – were bent, their arms and hands working, over a reed mat. He hoped they were mostly finished.

Alsoomse glanced his way; she saw him. She rose, took two tentative steps, rushed to him. They embraced.

“You came,” she murmured, the right side of her face pressed against his chest.

He stroked her hair. “I’m here to stay,” he said. For awhile, he thought.

***

Like every writer of fiction, I am hopeful my first chapter will cause curious readers to want to read the entire book.


Work cited:

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand: Roanoke’s Forgotten Indians. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). Print.



Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Characters Real and Imagined

As I stated in my last post, most of the Algonquian characters in the novel that I am writing are fictitious. This is because historians know very few of the names of the natives with whom Englishmen interacted at or near Roanoke Island in the 1580s. Most of the names actually reported by explorers or colonizers come from one source: Ralph Lane, governor of the English colony on Roanoke Island from August 1585 to June 1586, when he and his colony left for England. Lane almost single-handedly destroyed the tentative friendship that Captains Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas had developed with the local natives during their brief stay on the Outer Banks in 1584. Delusional, paranoid, Lane came to believe that a great alliance of coastal Algonquian tribes was being organized to exterminate his colony. He named at least 14 natives in his report to Walter Raleigh following his return to England. All of these named individuals are characters in my novel.

First and foremost was Wingina, the chief weroance of the villages of Roanoke, Dasemunkepeuc, Croatoan, and, probably, Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan. (See the map provided by this link: http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co.... It was Wingina with whom Lane contested to obtain food during the winter and spring of his tenure as governor. It was Wingina who, he believed, was organizing an alliance to destroy him.

Lane mentioned two leaders of other confederations of villages: Okisko of the Weapemeoc and Menatonon of the Choanoac. When Lane took an exploratory party to Menatonon’s primary village, Choanoac, in April 1586, he confronted Menatonon to obtain information about the location of valuable mineral deposits. He took Menatonon’s young son, Skiko, back to Roanoke as a hostage. Skiko had been captured by the fierce, Iroquois-speaking Mangoaks west and southwest of Choanoac but had escaped.

Arthur Barlowe, a co-leader of the first expedition to Roanoke (1584), mentioned information told to him about Piemacum, weroance (chief) presumably of the village of Pomeiooc. Some historians believe that Piemacun was the leader of the non-Algonquian speaking Pomouik, which through trickery had murdered many braves of Secotan, a village that may have been under Wingina’s authority. (See my October 16, 2015, post: “Two Major Events”) Historians do agree that Wingina and Piemacum had a hostile relationship.

Lane also indentified individual Algonquians who were related to or were important subordinates of Wingina. There was Granganimeo, Wingina’s brother and weroance of Roanoke. There was the two brothers’ father, Ensenore, Dasemunkepeuc half-priest and influencial advisor. Lane also listed principal subordinates. Tetapano, Eracano, and Cossine guided Lane’s party (and probably acted as Wingina’s spies) to Choanoac in April 1586. We are told that Eracano was married to Wingina’s sister. She was not identified. Osacan was a brave who attempted to rescue Skiko (Menatonon’s son) from Lane’s fort prior to Lane’s departure to England. Lane wrote that Tanaquincy and Andacon were going to lead a party of twenty braves across Pamlico Sound from Dasemunkepeuc to “attack Lane’s house at night, set its reed thatch on fire, and kill Lane as he ran from the burning building. Other parties would do the same for Thomas Harriot’s house, and for the remaining individual houses in the ‘town’ (the only case where we hear the word used). At the same time larger parties, presumably, would attack and overwhelm the guards at the defensive works of the settlement” (Quinn 126). Historian Michael Leroy Oberg identifies Taraquine and Andacon as the two leaders that Lane believed would lead the assault on his house. He places Tanaquincy with Osacan and Wanchese as principal men advising Wingina to take hostile action.

All of these identified Indians appear in my novel.

When Arthur Barlowe returned to England in the summer of 1584, he brought back with him two natives: Manteo and Wanchese. Manteo was the son of Croatoan’s weroansqua (female chief). Her name was never reported. All that historians know about Wanchese prior to Barlowe’s and Philip Amadas’s appearance in 1584 was that he was from Roanoke. These two individuals were to be taught English so that they could be interpreters when Lane’s men built a fort and settlement at Roanoke in 1585. Wingina’s choice of them had to have been self-serving. Manteo was probably very intelligent. Indeed, he took to English culture readily and upon his return to America behaved more like an Englishman than an Algonquian. He was Ralph Lane’s interpreter, participated in Lane’s destructive acts, and became Governor John White’s closest native ally in 1587 when White’s colonists were especially fearful of an Algonquian attack led by Wanchese. Wingina probably chose Wanchese to go to London because Wanchese must have been a highly regarded warrior. A weroance’s principal men were almost always experienced, esteemed hunters and warriors. Wingina would have wanted such a man to learn everything he could about England’s far superior weaponry. Wingina was in particular need of such information given the apparent fact that his authority was being challenged within his own sphere of influence. (In my novel I have a rebellion beginning to occur in 1583 led by Piemacum of Pomeiooc) Historians tell us that while Manteo flourished during his instruction in London Wanchese was resistant and sullen. When the two natives were returned to the Carolina coast in 1585, Manteo stayed with the English and worked for Lane; but Wanchese immediately reported to Wingina and disassociated himself from the English. During his year’s tenure as governor Lane suspected repeatedly Wanchese’s desire to see the colony and Lane destroyed.

I am certain that Manteo and Wanchese never liked each other. I indicate this in an early scene of my novel. Both men are attending a council meeting called by Wingina during a corn festival at Dasemunkepeuc.

***

Inside his long house Wingina was conducting an informal council. Attending were his brother, Granganimeo; his brother-in-law, Eracano; his father, Ensenore; three of his best warriors, Tetepano, Andacon, and Mingan [a fictitious character]; Manteo, the son of Croatoan’s weroansqua; Granganimeo’s closest friend, Tanaquincy; and Wanchese. Wingina and Granganimeo were smoking long-stemmed clay pipes. Flashes of the great fire outside danced on the matted reed walls that provided its occupants ventilation. Soon to be twenty summers, Wanchese recognized he was the youngest of the men present. Most had to have seen twenty-five or twenty-six summers, Wingina, Granganimeo, and Eracano at least thirty, and Ensenore more than fifty. He was gratified that he had been included, but he was uncertain of its meaning. He was convinced there was a specific purpose. What that would be he would probably be told after the council. His conduct would be that of respectful listener and, if asked to speak, of a deferential fact-giver. He thought it highly unlikely that these mature men would solicit his opinion.

“With the growing season ended, we need to address our problem with Piemacum.” Withdrawing his pipe stem from his mouth, Wingina glanced at his brother, then at Andacon, his fiercest warrior.

Eracano nodded. He repositioned himself on the long bench he shared with his two sons and son-in-law.

Granganimeo spoke. “Piemacum is your age, Andacon. Too ambitious for his loin skin. He wants power more than he wants wives.”

“He plans to take away our trade,” Andacon said.

Wingina nodded.

“I think he wants an alliance with the Pomouik,” Tanaquincy volunteered.

“We don’t know if that is true.” Wingina raised his pipe. He examined it at chin level. “But we should assume so.”

Manteo half-raised his right hand. The top portion of the large turkey feather embedded in the groove above his forehead bobbed. “I know that Piemacum wants a friendship with the Neusiok. It follows that he needs an alliance with the Pomouik.”

Wanchese watched Manteo out of the right corners of his eyes. Manteo was seated three braves to his right on the bench opposite that of the senior tribesmen. He had had little acquaintance with this rather tall, self-important behaving Croatoan. What he had seen of Manteo he hadn’t liked. Interjecting himself into this discussion with information that Wingina probably knew was an attempt to gain stature. It contributed nothing to solving Wingina’s problem.

Wanchese’s weroance nodded. His pearl earrings swung. “How do you know that?”

“He has spoken to my mother.”

“Then I will need to speak to her.” He frowned, folded his arms slowly across his bare chest. “She should have told me.”

“He visited her four sleeps ago. I came here especially to tell you.”

“Deliver to her, then, my gratitude.”

Manteo’s upper torso straightened; he appeared to grow. Resentment stirred in Wanchese’s throat.

***

I have provided specific character traits to all of these real people. I have given Wingina and Granganimeo wives and children that I have been obliged to name and assign age. I have given Ensenore a deceased brother that I have named Wematin. Wingina has succeeded Wematin as the chief weroance (mamanatowick) of the six coastal villages I have mentioned above.

I have provided Wanchese a deceased father and mother, a deceased brother, a deceased sister, and a living sister, Alsoomse. I have provided a family history. I have given Wanchese and Alsoomse two cousins – Nootau and Sokanon – brother and sister. Both are rather important secondary characters. I have also provided Wanchese and Alsoomse friends and neighbors and several personal enemies.

I chose the names of my fictitious characters from a list of names for Algonquian children. (http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/na...) An Algonquian’s name reflected something about the person’s appearance or trait of character. Algonquians could change their names. For instance, Wingina changed his name to Pemisapan when he withdrew his Roanoke villagers to Dasemunkepeuc after his relationship with Governor Lane had become especially hostile.

Alsoomse means “independent.”

Kitchi (Alsoomse and Wanchese’s deceased brother) means “brave.”

Kimi (Alsoomse and Wanchese’s deceased sister) means ‘secret.”

Matunaagd (Alsoomse and Wanchese’s dead father) means “He who fights.”

Nadie (Alsoomse and Wanchese’s deceased mother) means “wise.”

It became necessary for me to create a chart of the names of these characters with ages indicated and relationships defined to enable me to narrate my story.

Here is much of what I decided about my two protagonists before I began writing.

Alsoomse is an independent-minded, creative young woman of seventeen years who feels constrained by the limitations placed on her by her restrictive culture and by the fact that she is female. She speaks her mind. She defends those who are abused and vulnerable. She craves a male relationship. She feels especially the loss of her mother, who died when Alsoomse was fifteen.

Wanchese is a quick-tempered, impulsive young warrior of twenty. He suffered both the loss of his father, when he was fifteen, and his brother Kitchi, a year after the father’s death. Wanchese feels partially responsible for Kitchi’s accidental death. Wanchese is a skilled hunter and warrior, he is ambitious, and he is loyal (yet privately critical) to his chief weroance (Wingina). He respects courtesy and generosity and disdains pretension and bullying. Because of his sister’s independent behavior, he is often at odds with her; but they share important character traits.

In my next post l be more specific about Alsoomse’s and Wanchese’s activities and conflicts and the plot direction that the novel has taken.


Work cited:

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent's Hand. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Print.

Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print.



Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Two Major Events

Unlike my Revolutionary War novel "Crossing the River," most of the events that occur in "Alsoomse and Wanchese" are fictitious because I have had very little historical information to utilize. What historians know about events in the lives of North Carolina coastal Algonquians prior to 1584 (the year that my novel concludes) comes from a single source, Captain Arthur Barlowe, who with Captain Philip Amadas was sent to America in 1584 to find a suitable location to establish a colony. In his report to his employer Walter Raleigh, Barlowe made sketchy references to two important events that occurred prior to his and Amadas’s arrival: the first having occurred several years earlier and the second a month or two earlier. These are major events in my novel.

As you read this post, you will need to refer to a map. Click this link and scroll downward.
http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co...

The 1584 expedition to Roanoke took back to England two natives: Manteo and Wanchese. They were taught English at Walter Raleigh’s residence in London and returned to Roanoke in 1585 to act as interpreters. During their education in London they told their tutor, Thomas Harriot, about an attack committed apparently against the village of Secotan by the Pomouik Indians. In his report Arthur Barlowe provided this information.

“Adjoyning to this countrey aforesaid called Secotan begginneth a countrey called Pomovik, belonging to another king whom they call Piamacum, and this king is in league with the next king adjoyning towards the setting of the Sunne, and the countrey Newsiok, situate upon a goodly river called Neus: these kings have mortall warre with Wingina king of Wingandacoa: but about two yeeres past there was a peace madde betweene the King Piemacum, and the Lord of Secotan, as these men which we have brought with us to England, have given us to understand: but there remaineth a mortall malice in the Secotanes, for many injuries and slaughters done upon them by this Piemacum. They invited divers men, and thirtie women of the best of his countrey to their towne to a feast: and when they were altogether merry, & praying before their Idol, (which is nothing els but a meer illusion of the devil) the captaine or Lord of the town came suddenly upon them, and slewe them every one, reserving the women and children: and these two have often times since perswaded us to surprize Piemacum his towne, having promised and assured us, that there will be found in it great store of commodities. But whether their perswasion be to the ende they may be revenged of their enemies, or for the love of they beare to us, we leave that to the tryall hereafter” (Virtual 1).

Historians interpret differently Barlowe’s account of what either he or Harriot had been told.

Historian David Beers Quinn wrote: “Toward the southern limits of Pamlico Sound Indian groups were at war with each other, the “Pomouik” and the Secotan, on the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers, respectively; they also were alleged to be hostile to Wingina. Wingina may have attempted to assert some degree of hegemony over the Secotan, though this is conjecture, but they [reference to the second major event?] had recently repelled him. His influence seems to have extended at least as far south as Pomeioc on Wyesocking Bay and perhaps also comprised the Hatarask [Croatoan] Indians from which Manteo came (Quinn 44).

About the extent of Wingina’s control historian Lee Miller wrote: “The King’s name, he [Barlowe] said, was Wingina and the country called Wingandacoa. … Later, he tells us that Secotan (Secota) was the westernmost town of Wingandacoa and that a country called Ponouike (Pomouik) adjoined it to the west, whose King maintained ‘mortal war with Wingina, King of Wingandacoa.’ … On John White’s map the entire area now known as the Albemarle Peninsula … is labeled ‘Secotan,’ implying that White and Hariot understood Wingina’s country to encompass the area including, at the very least, the towns of Secota, Aquascogoc, Pomeioc, Dasamonquepeuc, and Roanoke” (Miller 265-266).

About the attack, Miller has a different slant. “”Barlowe tells a story that he heard from Manteo or Wanchese while in England. The Secotan, he said, once revenged themselves upon the Pamlico by inviting thirty of their women and divers men to Secota for a feast, and slew them every one, reserving the women and children. That was how wars were conducted; women and children survived” (Miller 234-235).

Historian Michael Leroy Oberg believes that the Pomouik Indians were actually the people of Pomeiooc. “Indians from Secotan, some time before the English arrived, had traveled to Pomeiooc on [weroance] Piemacum’s invitation for a feast to celebrate a peace agreement between the two towns. When the Secotans arrived, and ‘were altogether merrie, and praying before their Idoll,’ Piemacum and his warriors ‘came suddenly upon them, and slew them every one, reserving the women and children,’ who probably became either slaves or adoptees. This story, recorded ambiguously in Barlowe’s account and repeated with no more clarity by John Smith nearly half a century later, raises difficult questions about the relationship between Secotan and Pomeiooc, and of both with Wingina and his people at Dasemunkepeuc and on Roanoke Island” (Oberg 12, 14).

Provided such disagreement among historians, I was forced to decide for myself what might have happened.

I date the year of the Pomouik attack to be 1579. Wingina’s dominion of “Wingandacoa” – which the English later learned meant “Welcome, friend” – includes the villages Roanoke, Dasemunkepeuc, Croatoan, Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, Cotan, and Secotan. Wingina’s uncle in 1579 is the mamanatowick (chief ruler) of the territory. He is killed during the Pomouik attack and Wingina succeeds him. By 1583 the southern territory of Wingina’s rule is beginning to break away. This gradual rejection of Wingina’s authority is lead by the weroance of Pomeiooc, an aggressive upstart named Piemacum.

Here are two excerpts from the first chapter of “Alsoomse and Wanchese” that illustrate how I am utilizing this first event.

***

Many summers ago his [Wanchese’s] father Matunaagd, a young brave, had traveled to Secotan with his weroance Wematin and seven high-born, lusty braves to attend the village’s first-harvest corn festival. The purpose of the visit was to impress the villagers of Wematin’s power. Secotan and Aquascogooc had recently accepted Wematin as their chief protector. Secotan lay across the great river from its fierce enemy, the Pomouik. It was important to Wematin that he emphasize his commitment and display his strength. Matunaagd had seen a lithe, graceful beauty dance about a ceremonial post. He had spoken to her during the subsequent festival. She had been demure, but her eyes had been welcoming. He had remained at Secotan for four moons, she had agreed to be his wife, and he had moved into her parents’ long house.

Two moons later Wematin had sent his nephews Wingina and Granganimeo to Secotan to retrieve him. At Dasemunkepeuc Nadie had given birth first to Wanchese -- twenty summers ago -- then Alsoomse, then Kitchi, and then Kimi. The youngest, Kimi, had died of a fever nine summers ago after four turning-of-the-leaves. Matunaagd, and Wematin, and Nadie’s brothers-in-law Rowtag had been slain by the Pomouik four summers ago eight sleeps after Secotan had celebrated its final corn harvest. Nadie, Wanchese, Alsoomse, and Kitchi and Nadie’s sister Sooleawa and her son and daughter had afterward moved to Roanoke.

***

And, later …

***

Wematin had taken Kiwasa’s statue with him to Panauuaioc, after his brother Ensenore and the priests had bestowed ceremonial offerings to Kiwasa and sprinkled sacred tobacco on the great river’s waters. The priests had persuaded Wematin that the Pomouik weroance was sincere in his invitation to celebrate peace! Wematin had had his doubts, Wanchese had long ago concluded. Wematin had left behind at Secotan his grown nephews, Wingina and Granganimeo, and his nephew-in-law Eracano. But he had taken Matunaagd and Rowtag and Askook’s father Matwau, they -- Wanchese later surmised -- having been similarly skeptical, all having chosen to leave behind their wives and children.

Hours later, the women and children that had attended the great feast had paddled back across the river. Their husbands and fathers had been slain. While they had been praying to their idol, Pomouik braves, hidden in the woods, had fallen upon them. The wicked god Kiwasa had chosen to favor Wematin’s enemy.

Four summers had passed. Wingina had not retaliated.

It was not enough to send emissaries such as he [Wanchese] and his elders to the Weapemeoc, the Chowanoc, and the Moratuc to maintain peaceful trade relations and to pretend that the villages across the waters from Croatoan were not slipping away from his grasp. It was not the Real People’s way to attack their enemy, with large numbers. Victory was achieved in small measure by subterfuge, by ambush. Because of the foolishness of Wematin’s priests the Pomouiks’ victory had been large! With Wingina’s enemy expecting retaliation, such a victory could not be replicated. Revenge, however, was essential. Wanchese believed that Wingina should take ten braves (Wanchese included) across the river above Panauuaioc during a moonless night and wait in cattails for the sun’s first light. Pomouik hunters seeking deer taking water would appear. But Wingina had attempted nothing. Braves, including Wanchese, were questioning his leadership.

So also were the weroances of Aquascogooc and especially Pomeiooc and the people who had remained at Secotan. Every villager accorded privileges to his leader in exchange for his protection. Piemacum, the weroance of Pomeiooc, had become defiant. Wingina had received messages from allies in Secotan that Piemacum had come to their village vowing to protect them. During the past two moons, Pomeiooc braves had encroached on Dasemunkepeuc hunting grounds. Tetepano, Cossine, and Andacan had been driven away by a volley of arrows.

***

The second event occurred one or two months prior to Captains Amadas and Barlowe’s arrival in 1584.

Lee Miller, interpreting Barlowe, wrote: “Wingina had been wounded in a fight ‘with the King of the next country’ and was recovering ‘at the chief town of the country,’ which was ‘six day’s journey off.’ Or roughly sixty miles from Barlowe’s landing at Wococon [on the Outer Banks]. Later, he [Barlowe] tells us that Secotan (Secota) was the westernmost town of Wingandacoa and that a country called Pomouike (Pomouik) adjoined it to the west, whose King maintained ‘mortal war with Wingina, King of Wingandacoa.’ We might conclude, therefore, that Wingina was wounded by the Pomouik and was recovering at his own capital of Secota” (Miller 266).

Michael Oberg addressed this event somewhat differently. Wingina was in Dasemunkepeuc, not Secota, when Captains Amadas and Barlowe arrived. “He had been wounded in battle, sometime before the English arrived, ‘shotte in two places through the bodeye, and once clean thorough the thigh’” (Oberg 31).

I have accepted Lee Miller’s interpretation, but I will have Wingina recovering in Dasemunkepeuc when the Englishmen appear. I have not yet narrated this event. Wanchese will be directly involved.

I will adhere to all events that occurred involving English contact with the Roanoke natives in 1584. My story will end with Manteo and Wanchese’s leave-taking for England. If I have sufficient time and energy, I will consider writing a follow-up novel.

My next post will be about my characters (including who were real people and who were not) and, especially, what drives my two protagonists.


Works Cited:

Barlowe, Arthur. "The first voyage made to the coasts of America, with two barks, where in were captains M. Philip Amadas, and M. Arthur Barlowe, who discovered part of the Country now called Virginia." Virtual Jamestown: First-Hand Accounts by Dates. 1575-1599. http://www.virtualjamestown.org/fhacc.... Net.

Miller, Lee. Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony. New York, Arcade Publishing, 2000. Print.

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Print.

Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print



Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Warfare

Man being the aggressive species that he is, warfare between different language-speaking native Americans in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries was commonplace. This was certainly true of the coastal Carolinian and Powhatan Algonquians.

Weroances chose to attack different language-speaking tribes (and sometimes tribes that spoke the same language) not usually to acquire territory or goods but to exact revenge for offenses received. Sometimes, attacks were ordered to obtain women and children for adoption purposes: to bolster tribal population or to reduce the likelihood of attack that could jeopardize the safety of those taken. Decreasing an aggressive enemy’s motivation to act belligerently could also be accomplished simply by killing a number of its warriors.

Attacks were usually small-scale ambushes conducted by a few warriors led by a captain appointed by the weroance. Places selected were often in wooded or reedy locations, in high weeds in open fields, and amongst well-grown corn stalks. Once discovered, the attackers, if they had not already done so, sought to advance to within shooting range of the enemy without unduly exposing themselves, using whatever cover they could utliize. Fast movement and the willingness to fall down or retreat to evade arrows were paramount. Immediate outright kills with arrows were uncommon. Arrow attacks were designed to disable their victims, who would thereupon be rushed and killed with clubs or wooden swords. Once discovered, attackers would make terrifying war cries and briefly expose their garishly painted bodies hoping to disconcert their victims into taking hasty, foolish actions, like taking flight into an adjacent area chosen by the attackers for a delayed ambush.

Subterfuge might also be employed to do injury to an enemy. Part of a weroance’s fighting force might present itself as peaceful men whose purpose seemingly was to invite the enemy to participate in a feast of celebration or religious ritual. The remainder of the weronace’s force would absence itself until the feast or ritual was underway or attack afterward at night. Manteo and Wanchese, the two Algonquians taken back to England in 1584, told Thomas Harriot that this had occurred to the Secotans.

Participation in an attack was not voluntary. A “lusty” principle warrior was selected by the weroance to lead the attack. Another well regarded warrior was sent to the villages of the chief weroance to select, with a hearty slap on the back, their best warriors. Each would be told to report on a specific day at a place of rendezvous. No warrior dared be absent. Few wanted to be. From boyhood each village male had been trained to fight. His huskanaw (initiation into manhood – see “Alssome and Wanchese” July 14, 2015, post) ceremony had conditioned him to disregard fear and loss of life, even by horrible torture. Great exploits in battle brought a warrior considerable admiration and renown. His success was publicly claimed and publicly rewarded. He was encouraged at public occasions to recount his exploits in the presence of elite tribal members and visiting “royalty.” It was his pathway to becoming a member of his weroance’s advisory council. Conversely, if he were judged lacking in performance, the women who tortured the captives of a raid would deride him for his unwillingness to take chances.

Every warrior knew the fate that awaited him should he be captured. His captors would build a fire, strip him, and tie him to a tree or a stake. He would be executed by the women of the village or by a man appointed by the weroance. Sharp mussel shells were used to gradually flay and cut off the captured warrior’s limbs, which were thrown into the fire. He was then disemboweled. His remains were either dried into a kind of mummy kept in a room or burned along with either the tree or the stake after trophies had been taken for drying. Trophies were frequently dried hands worn in the victors’ knotted-up hair. Scalps might be taken. Any sign of pain showed by the victim brought derision. Powhatans had mocking songs that their men sang. A real man died stoically, or, better, he died deriding his tormentors. Death with honor was the only possible end for a captured man, if he were not able to escape.

Victory was celebrated on the spot and back in the village. Englishmen captured by the Powhatans “were brought home in a formal procession. [John] Smith recorded the celebration that followed his own capture in 1607. At the head of the procession was the leader of the party, Opechancanough, ‘well guarded’ by four rows of five men each, a row on each side of him, one in front, and one behind him. Next came Smith, with a bowman preceeding and one on each side of him. After that came the remaining warriors, walking in a long, snakelike file with a ‘sargeant’ on each side running up and down the line in opposite directions to keep order. The file marched for ‘a [long] time,’ apparently around the town, before the men ‘cast themselves in a ring with a [victory] daunce.’ Smith wrote much later that the dance was actually three dances, in which they moved ‘in such severall [different] Postures, and singing and yelling out such hellish notes and screeches’ that Smith’s ‘stomache at that time was not very good’” (Rountree 125-125).

Fighting gear was primitive. “The English thought the [Carolina] Indians’ weapons crude, and that these posed little threat to the colonists on the field of battle. ‘If there fall out any warres between us and them, we having advantages against them so many maner or waies,’ [Thomas] Harriot wrote, ‘the turning up of their heeles against us in running away was their best defence.’ Wingina’s people had ‘no edge tooles or weapons of yron or steele to offend us withal.’ Their weapons, Harriot observed, ‘are onlie bowes of Witch hazle & arrows of reeds, flat edged truncheons also of wood about a yard long.’ They had no armor, and nothing to defend themselves with ‘but targets made of barks, and some armours made of stickes wickered together with threade.’ Still, the military technology employed by Wingina and his followers suited their tactics, and a warrior could fire several arrows in the time it took an English soldier to load and fire his musket” (Oberg 20).

Powhatan and Carolina war clubs were thick wooden clubs or stout wooden truncheons having one or two sharp edges or truncheons with attached deer antlers or sharp stones. Rather than tied together sticks, Powhatan warriors used shields made of thick, round bark hung on their left shoulders to protect that side of them when they fired their arrows.

Arrow wounds were usually fatal. The likelihood of severing an artery was great. An arrowhead wedged in ribs was not retrievable. The best a victim could hope for would be to have the arrowhead pass entirely through a limb without severing an artery. The arrow could then be broken or cut in half behind the exposed arrowhead and the remaining part of the shaft withdrawn through the entrance hole. Herbal or ground up root salve would then be applied and days of rest followed. If infection did not occur, recovery was probable. An arrowhead lodged in the body (not in ribs) had to be removed through the entrance hole. The U.S. Army during the Indian wars in the West in the 1870s devised a clasping mechanism that, inserted through the entrance hole, secured the head to prevent it from separating from the arrow shaft. In the 1580s any attempt to pull the arrowhead out of the entrance hole usually caused separation.


Works cited:

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Print.

Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Print.

Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Religion

Fervid belief in spiritual powers controlled the lives of coastal Carolina Algonquians. Two gods were especially important.

Algonquians believed in the existence of a distant, benevolent creator. The Powhatans of Virginia called him Ahone. William Strachey, Secretary of the Virginia Council at Jamestown from 1610-1611, wrote that Ahone was believed to be a “‘good and peaceable god’ who required ‘no such dutyes, nor needs to be sacrificed unto, for he entendeth all good unto them, and will doe no harme’” (Oberg 24). Ahone made the sun rise. He had created the moon and the stars to be his companions. Having provided what was good in the universe, he did not interfere with the activities of humans. He was not, consequently, feared.

The second primary god was a frequently malevolent force that the Carolina Algonquians called Kiwasa. He was the cause of sickness, disappointments, losses, hunger, every misfortune that humans suffered. It was incumbent that Kiwasa be placated, appeased, bribed. “Wingina’s people engaged in ritual to appease Kiwasa and deflect his wrath … These rituals, Strachey observed later, the Indians considered so essential ‘that if they should omit them they suppose their Okeus [Kiwasa] and all their … other gods [of lower station] would let them have no deare, Turkies, Corne, nor Fish’” (Oberg 25). Kiwasa was present in the air, in the thunder, in storms. Anyone who displeased him was punished, even for minor offenses. He caused -- among other misfortune -- illness, the loss of crops through storms, and the infidelity of wives. He could reward hunters by showing where game was present. He could punish them by letting them be scratched by briars. People made offerings to him when they were faced with difficulties and they rendered thanks to him when their problems were eliminated.

“Specifically qualified specialists -- overseers of the religious life of the village -- ensured that the people properly performed the necessary rituals.” English observers indentified them as priests and “conjurors.” “Both had acquired special bonds with the immense variety of natural and supernatural forces in the Algonquian cosmos” (Oberg 25). Thomas Harriot, who reported so much of what we know about the Carolina Algonquians, described them as men “‘well stricken in years’ … Their dress and appearance distinguished them from the rest of the community.”

“Priests wore ‘their heare cutt like a crest, on the topps of their heads as other doe, but the rest are cut shorte, saving those which growe above their foreheads in manner of a periwigge.’ Priests hung objects from piercings in their ears, and wore ‘a shorte cloke made of fine hares skinnes quilted with the hayre outwarde.’ They wore nothing else” (Oberg 25).

See artist John White’s depiction: http://www.virtualjamestown.org/image....

They spent most of their time alone contemplating in temples dedicated to Kiwasa. A human image of Kiwasa was prominently displayed. They maintained a fire in the temple near to its east end, where the sun rose. They had great power and status. They communicated with Kiwasa and, therefore, were believed capable of predicting favorable and forestalling adverse outcomes. Powhatan weroances actually competed to bring the best of priests to their villages.

“When priests left their temples, “they remained apart from commoners. They wandered along the rivers, ‘to kill with their bowes, and catch wilde ducks, swannes, and other flowles,’ creatures who could move between the realms of earth, air and water” (Oberg 25).

Conjurors dressed differently; they wore nothing except a “‘skinne which hangeth downe from their girdle and covereth their privities,’ and they affixed ‘a small black birde above one of their ears as a badge of their office.’”
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/image....

“They had been called to their position and given special powers by forces in the spiritual world. … They could predict the actions of enemies and disorient their opponents. They could find lost objects and foretell the future. They could cure disease and detect its cause. With proper rituals, they could control the weather” (Oberg 25-26).

John Smith “wrote that during violent storms the ‘conjurors’ ran down to the shore, if they were not already in canoes, and after making ‘many hellish outcryes’ threw tobacco, puccoon, or copper trinkets into the water to appease the god causing the storm.” On one occasion in 1611 Englishmen, exploring new territory, met resistance from the Algonquian Nansemond tribe. “The Nansemonds saw their arrows merely ricocheting off the Englishmen’s armor, and knowing that English guns used fire or sparks, they called on their priest [or conjuror] to make rain that would neutralize those weapons. Accompanied by a ‘mad crew’ of dancing warriors, the priest ran along the shoreline with his rattle, throwing fire into the air out of a censer [a vessel made for burning incense] and making ‘many dyabolicall gestures’ and incantations. An Indian accompanying the English expedition recognized the ritual and announced that there would soon be rain. And so there was, ‘exceeding thunder and lighteninge and much raine,’ but it fell five miles away” (Rountree 132-133).

Some conjurors, while communicating with their spiritual helpers, became possessed. The conjuror in John White’s painting wore an animal skin pouch at his right hip that probably contained tobacco, and, perhaps, curable herbs. Native tobacco had a high nicotine content. Ingestion triggered “an ecstatic visionary-trance state.” Hariott wrote “that they believed it was beloved of their gods and cast the precious powder on the water and in the air as a sacrifice to them: ‘but all done with strange gestures, stamping, sometimes dancing, clapping of hands, holding vp of hands, & staring vp into the heavens, vttering therewithal and chattering strange words & noises’” (Sloan 128).

Priests and conjurors were believed to have curative powers. They possessed an extensive knowledge of vegetative and herbal remedies. For instance, Liquidamber Styraciflua (sweet gum) was used by the Rappahannock for dysentery; the Cherokee for diarrhea, sores, and ulcers; the Carolina Indians for herpes; and the Lumbee for loose teeth. Symplocarpus Foetidus (swamp cabbage) was used by the Delaware as a local anesthesia, the Mohegan for epilepsy, and the Dakota as an expectorant for consumption. Typha (cattails) was used by the Pawnee for scalds and burns, the Delaware for kidney stones, the Ojibwa for boils and carbuncles, and the Algonquians for wounds. In “Alsoome and Wanchese”-- my work in progress -- a conjuror applies a salve made from the rhizomes of cattail to a wound caused by the passage through the thigh of the arrowhead and part of the shaft of an arrow.

Ritual was considered essential to preserve order and balance in the cosmos. Rituals were performed “to acquire the spiritual power necessary to prosper. Rituals surrounded the conduct of warfare. Priests and conjurors provided the weroance with advice on tactics and strategy. They carried, according to Harriot, a statue of Kiwasa into battle, asking it for support and strength. If the Indians treated Kiwasa with respect, and followed the accustomed rituals, they did not believe that misfortune could find them. … Wingina’s people celebrated as well elaborate, demanding, and time-consuming rituals of death and the afterlife” (Oberg 26-27). Death was believed to be an important part of life.

Algonquians believed in punishment and reward after life. Harriot “learned of two occasions where Algonquian individuals had traveled beyond the earth, one to a region called Popogusso, an Algonquian hell, and the other to a celestial paradise. Both spiritual voyagers returned from their journeys with vital information to teach their ‘friends what they should doe’” (Oberg 29). The first man had been “dead and buried, after a wicked life [but had returned] to earth after being saved by one of the gods from ‘hell.’” The second man, “rising from the dead,” had given “an account of a pleasant and homely ‘heaven’ where he met his father, but was given leave to return to earth to extol the pleasures of the other world” (Quinn 225).

“The bodies of weroances and, perhaps, other high-ranking individuals received elaborate treatment after death. Working on scaffolds erected in the temples, priests disemboweled the body and removed the internal organs. Then, according to Harriot, they removed the skin in its entirety, and ‘cutt all the fleshe clean from the bones, wich they drye in the sonne, and well dryed they inclose in Matts, and place at their feet.’ They covered the bones, ‘remayninge still fastened together with the ligament whole and uncorrupted’ with leather, and worked to shape it ‘as yf their flesh wear not taken away.’ Finally, they wrapped each corpse in its skin, and laid the body next to ‘the corpses of the other cheef lordes,’ which also were preserved in the temple. Kiwasa stood guard, keeping ‘the dead bodyes of their cheefe lordes that nothinge may hurt them.’” Mumbling prayers day and night, priests “watched over the community’s deceased leaders” (Oberg 27).
http://blog.encyclopediavirginia.org/...

Non-elite Algonquians received ordinary burials “with the deceased wrapped in skins and mats and buried in the ground.” At an archaeological site on Roanoke Island some “were laid in their graves on the left side, in a semi-flexed position. Others were buried after receiving much more extensive mortuary treatment—the removal of the skin and the soft parts of the body.” This site may have been an ossuary burial, “a ‘collective, secondary deposit of skeletal material representing individuals initially stored elsewhere,’ which contains ‘the remains of all or most of the members of the group who had died since the last collective burial’” (Oberg 27-28).

“Ossuaries are common along the Carolina Sounds. They hold the remains of men and women, young and old. They include fully articulated remains and entirely disarticulated bundles, as well as a scattering of bones. … We know from descriptions of the ceremonies accompanying ossuary reburial in other locations that it required the participation of the community. … The ceremony took time, the expenditure of resources in the form of gifts, and a commitment to care for and tenderly clean the decayed remains of dead ancestors. [The first scene of the first chapter of “Alsoomse and Wanchese” has the seventeen-year-old lead female character Alsoomse cleaning the bones of her deceased mother] Death, and the resulting grief, could disrupt a community, leaving those who mourned bereft of reason. The reburial of all who had died since the last ceremony served to unify the community and tie it to the land it lived upon. … All belonged, and all were worthy of being remembered and reintegrated after death into the village community. Ossuary burial … helped set things right, and preserved balance between the world of the seen and the unseen, the natural and the supernatural, and the living and the dead” (Oberg 28).


Works cited:

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Print.

Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 1985. Print.

Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Print.

Sloan, Kim. A New World: England’s First View of America. Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina Press, 2007. Print.

Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Boy to Man, Hunting

Every reader of historical fiction wants to believe that the detail a historical novelist includes in his narrative is true to what is known about the people and time about which he writes. The novelist must do considerable research to warrant such belief. My “Writing Alsoomse and Wanchese” posts have provided you different aspects of how and where coastal Carolina Algonquians lived in 1584 when they first encountered English explorers. I will eventually write about my decision-making concerning characters, plot, and specific difficulties that I have encountered, but not yet. I need to provide additional context.

A man’s role in Algonquian society was that of fisherman, hunter, and protector. Women grew and harvested the crops, collected the nuts and berries, gathered the shellfish, and prepared all sources of food for every inhabitant’s consumption. Men provided the necessary fish, fowl, and meat so vital for survival especially during the months when food that women provided was not available. Because Man is innately war-like, village survival also required that Algonquian men be fearless warriors. This post will discuss the training of boys to become hunters and warriors and how Algonquian men hunted.

A man’s success was measured by the wealth of the food he provided. Being an excellent provider required skill, endurance, and courage. How well a man was regarded in the village depended on his success as a hunter. Great exploits as a warrior gained him high favor with his weroance (ruler) and often a seat at village council meetings. It was therefore incumbent that boys’ parents trained their sons early to become skilled hunters.

Boys practiced bow and arrow skills at a young age. Any boy lagging in the development of accuracy might have his mother deny him breakfast until he was able to hit moss tossed into the air with an arrow. Games were played that involved shooting accuracy: for instance, shooting competitively arrows through rolling reed hoops. Boys learned how to construct bows and arrows. They learned intimate knowledge of local terrain and plant cover that attracted certain animals. They accompanied their fathers and older relatives on hunting expeditions, learning by observation and by trial and error that which was expected.

Psychological pressure was put on them. All children were given birth names. As they matured, they could be given replacement names that reflected a noticeable aspect of their emergent character. The names reminded everybody in the village of how much or how little they had progressed as good providers, future warriors, and men of worthy character. Here is a sampling of Algonquian boys’ names.


Algonquian Name English Translation

Anakausuen worker
Askook snake
Askuwheteau he keeps watch
Kesegowaase swift
Kitchi brave
Matunaagd fights
Mekledoodum conceited
Pannoowau he lies
Segenam lazy


Sometime between the ages of 10 and 15 every boy participated in an initiation into manhood. The Virginia Powhatans called the initiation huskanaw. The very few Englishmen that commented about Carolina Algonquians rituals in the 1580s made no mention of a coming of age ritual, but it was common among Algonquian tribes elsewhere so we can assume that something quite similar happened in the villages by Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the Pamlico and Chowan Rivers.

The ritual was a rigorous test of endurance. It began with a morning-long dance and feast in which the entire village participated. Two huge dance circles were formed about a large fire. People, dressed in their very best, led by their weroance, danced four in a rank, seemingly endlessly, one circle moving clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. Four principal men of the weroance stood in the middle of the two circles. They would hit with a bundle of reeds anybody who lagged as he or she danced. A group of men wearing horns and holding green boughs danced inside the two circles. Without warning they would suddenly stop, make a hellish noise, throw aside their boughs, run up a small tree while clapping their hands, and tear the tree to the ground. They would then resume their dancing. Eventually, the boys who were to be initiated, their faces painted white, were presented. They were brought into the circles. People danced around them and sang.

In the afternoon the boys were led to a tree and told to sit next to it. Men guarded them with reed bundles. The guards then formed a lane of two lines away from the tree. Boys who had recently been initiated led the boys, one by one, through the lane. The guards, pretending to be furious (as if what was happening was an abduction), struck the initiated boys with their bundles. The neophyte boys were taken to another tree and ordered to sit. The ritual was repeated. At least one of the two trees about which the young boys had sat was torn apart by the “enraged” guards. Female spectators from a distance mourned loudly. They had beside them items associated with a funeral: dry wood, mats, skins, and moss for preparing the dead.

Next came the boys’ “death” ceremony. They were taken to a valley or ravine where the weroance was waiting. A feast lasted 2 or 3 hours. Men then formed another lane through which the boys had to pass. The boys were ordered to lie lifelessly about a tree. The men danced around them for awhile and then sat in a circle around them. The weroance ordered dry wood to be brought to construct a makeshift steeple that was to be burned. All of the day’s activities were attempts to frighten the boys and test their courage.

The final part of huskanaw began a day or so later. The boys were taken into the woods for several months under the supervision of grown men, called “keepers.” Shut in a cage – a tall lattice-constructed enclosure shaped like a cone -- the boys were given a concoction of ground up, poisonous, intoxicating roots. The mixture made them crazy. They drank the concoction for 18 to 20 days. They were repeatedly beaten. They were released finally from the cage and for several weeks brought gradually off the drug. They were brought back to the village in a zombie-like state to show that they remembered nothing of their boyhood existence. If a boy exhibited any recollection of his past – such as recognizing a parent – he was taken back into the woods to repeat the final ritual. Usually the boy did not survive.

###

Hunting of deer was done by stalking and surrounding. “Deer stalking was done by lone hunters and demanded tremendous skill; it earned a successful hunter considerable prestige. Stalking was done with a dummy deer, made of a deerskin with the head stuffed and the body slit on one side to admit the hunter’s arm. The hunter ‘wore’ the skin as he approached a browsing deer, creeping from one tree to another. If the deer became wary and stared at him, the hunter moved the head in a natural, deerlike way … [He] would make deerlike movements and allay the suspicions of the deer, which would then allow the hunter to come near enough to shoot” (Rountree 39).

Surrounding, or “fire-hunting” done by the Powhatans of Virginia “required more people and killed more deer. There were two variants. In one, a group of men would find a herd of deer and then spread themselves in a circle around it. … They built fires between their stands and began shouting. … Panicked, the game fled the fires, only to find that between the fires were shouting, shooting men. Soon the deer would be running in a circle … while the men picked them off one by one” (Rountree 40). John Smith estimated that 6 to 15 deer were killed in a single fire-hunt. Deer could also be trapped on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by water. Cutting off a herd’s only means of retreat, a group of hunters needed only to advance and shoot the deer either at the end of the peninsula or in the water from land or canoe.

Large-scale hunting trips were taken in the late fall to places not overhunted. For the Powhatans, those places were located near the major Virginia rivers’ fall line. Roanoke Algonquian group hunts probably took place in the swamp lands south and west of Dasemunkapeuc. Up to 20 to 30 hunters participated. “While the men hunted by day, women and children carried equipment, set up temporary households at previously arranged places (probably on the way to the site of the following day’s hunt), and processed the carcasses as the men brought them in. Living conditions in the camps closely approximated those in the towns. Housing was similar … and so was the cuisine, for the women brought their mortars and supplies of dried corn and acorns and (probably) pots into the wilderness with them” (Rountree 41).

The gear of a Powhatan and, most likely, Carolina Algonquian hunter consisted of a bow, arrows, a quiver, and a wrist guard. Bows were made of witch hazel. “English records say nothing of sinew backing or other strengthening devices. As with other forms of Powhatan woodworking, the wood for a bow was worked by scrapping it with a shell. Bowstrings were made from deer gut or from twisted thongs of deer hide. … John Smith wrote of arrows made of ‘straight young sprigs’ headed with a bone head two or three inches long, which were used against squirrels and birds.” He observed that some arrows were in several parts: a reed shaft, a wooden foreshaft, and a head. Arrowheads were variously made of ‘splinters’ of ‘christall’ or stone, wild turkey spurs, sharp bird bills, splinters of deer bone, ‘an oysters-shell,’ or ‘the ends of Deeres hornes.’” Stone arrowheads are mentioned in detail only by William Strachey, Secretary of Jamestown in 1609. He wrote that they were “‘in the forme of a heart’ barbed and jagged. The majority of points … that have been found archaeologically are small and triangular. Stone projectile points were ‘made … quickly’ with a small piece of antler that hung from the hunter’s wrist guard, and they were bound onto their shafts or foreshafts with deer sinew and then glued with a waterproof glue made of deer antlers boiled down into jelly. The overall length of Powhatan arrows was about forty-five inches, and they were fletched with turkey feathers cut to shape with a sharpened reed knife. The nock of the arrow was grated in, using a hafted beaver tooth” (Rountree 42).

Powhatan bows were strong enough to shoot arrows 40 yards with accuracy and 120 yards at most without accuracy. Quivers “were tubular containers more than two feet long and made ‘of small rushes.’ Wrist guards … were made of the tanned hides of wolves, raccoons, or foxes” (Rountree 42, 44).

Here is John White’s painting of a Carolina Algonquian hunter.
http://www.firstcolonyfoundation.org/...


Work cited:

Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. Norman, Oklahoma, University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Print



Writing Alsoomse and Wanchese -- Algonquian Food

Carolina Algonquians in 1584 subsisted on a seasonally determined, environmentally controlled diet. They hunted, gathered, and grew food. On the Outer Banks and the shores of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the banks of the rivers emptying into them survival required good fortune, specialized knowledge, hard work, and a reckoning of the passage of time.

Historians do not know how Wingina’s people marked time. Likely they identified it like their Algonquian neighbors to the north, the Powhatans, who divided the year into five seasons. According to John Smith, winter was called Popanow, spring Cattapeuk, summer Cohattayough, the earing of their corn Nepinough, and the harvest and the falling of leaves Taguitock. Additionally, they marked shorter passages of time by a year’s succession of full moons.

Tribal groups related their full moons to specific activities and environmental events. Tribes that inhabited dissimilar areas of North America identified their moons differently. For instance, the Passamaquoddy of the Great Lakes called January “whirling wind moon.” The Abenaki of the Northeast called February “makes branches fall in pieces moon.” The Shawnee of the Midwest called March “sap moon.” The Cheyenne of the Great Plains called April the “moon when the geese lay eggs.” The Cree called their May moon “frog moon.” The Choctaw called June “blackberry moon.” The Comanche called July “hot moon.” The Passamaquoddy called August’s full moon “feather shedding moon.” The Omaha called September “moon when the deer paw the earth.” For the Abenaki, October was “leaf falling moon.” For the Potawatomi, November was “moon of the turkey.” The Winnebago called December’s moon “big bear’s moon.” The Powhatans of Virginia had “the moon of stags,” “the corn moon,” and the first and second “moon of cohonks” – “cohonks” being the sound made by geese. Nobody knows what Wingina’s people called their moons because no Englishmen that visited Carolina, not even the meticulous Thomas Harriot, recorded it.

What did Wingina’s subjects eat and when did they eat it?

“In the late winter and early spring, Wingina’s people lived primarily upon fish.” According to Harriot, there was plenty of sturgeon as well as herring. “Alewives and shad began their run in March, and might have remained available into June. Wingina’s people used weirs to trap fish, but also speared them in the shallows or from their dugout canoes.”

[http://ncpedia.org/sites/default/file...]

“Different species of fish preferred waters of different salinity and depth, so doing this vital work required an intimate knowledge of the environment” (Oberg 22). Herring could be smoked to last for a considerable length of time.

Because fishing was so vital to their survival, coastal Algonquians were masters of the construction of dugout canoes. “A group of thirty of these canoes was recently discovered in the mud of Lake Phelps (in what is now Pettigrew State Park, north of Lake Mattamuskeet) where they had been stored over the winters between 2400 BC and AD 1400” (Sloan 108).

According to Thomas Harriot, the construction of a dugout canoe began with “the slow patient process of burning through the trunk so as not to damage the main body of the tree. When the tree had fallen, every branch (and, of course, the top) was carefully removed by fire. The tree trunk was then lifted and placed on a stand, made from branches laid between two sets of crossed and tied poles like a saw-horse. The bark was scraped off and the hollowing process begun.” In John White’s painting “sharp shells, conch and scallop we suspect, are shown being used as scrappers, first to remove the bark and then, after fires have been lit in the trunk, to hollow out the interior by scratching at the charred wood, until the whole interior of the tree has been excavated. The wood of the white cedar and the tulip tree was especially suited for this purpose as the inner layers are not necessarily as hard as the outer. The art and craft of making these canoes … was a task for the winter, when leaves were off and the sap was down” (Quinn 194).

“The finished dugout was a long, round-bottomed, thick-walled craft … The biggest canoes were about four feet deep and up to fifty feet long, with a carrying capacity of some forty men. However, most canoes were smaller, with room for between ten and thirty people with baggage.”

Some evidence exists that Algonquians used fire in their canoes to attract fish at night. “… the fire was made [on a raised hearth] at the bow of the canoe, and the canoe was paddled through the shoal water near the shore. The fish which gathered about the canoe were speared” (Rountree 34).

The use of weirs was essential. The purpose of a fish weir is to obstruct the direction that fish swim in shallow, tide-influenced waters and direct them into an enclosure that makes it difficult for them to escape. Thomas Harriot described the Carolina fish weir as “a kind of weir [a fence-like structure] made of reeds which in that country are very strong [cane stakes].” John White [in one of his paintings] “shows [a weir] in detail, with the traps inserted in the long line of staked obstructions” (Quinn 171).

http://www.historyisfun.org/wp-conten...

“Algonquians also hunted small game during this portion of the year – turkeys, squirrels, and rabbits – and they could harvest crabs and shellfish, the latter in abundance” (Oberg 22).

In May and June the Algonquian natives began planting their fields. “They lived on acorns, walnuts, and fish during these months, along with whatever corn reserves they still had on hand” (Oberg 22). They supplemented their food supply with fish, crabs, oysters, turtles, berries, and meat that they could obtain hunting. It was the leanest time of year. Men and women broke the upper part of the ground to uproot weeds, grasses, and the stubble of cornstalks. After the fields were cleared, the women set about planting corn seeds, beginning in one corner of the plot, poking holes in the ground and inserting four corn seeds in each hole. Corn and beans would be planted up to three times “through mid-June, so that in a good crop year there was ripe corn to eat from August … through October” (Rountree 47). The women would leave about a yard of space between each hole for the planting of beans (their vines would climb corn stalks), squash, and sunflowers.

During the remainder of the summer Wingina’s people “continued to live on fish, shellfish, and small game, as well as the walnuts, acorns, and berries that had been dried and preserved over the course of the year” (Oberg 23). Deer, rabbits, black bear, and waterfowl were hunted. As the crops grew, boys served as live scarecrows. Seated on small, covered scaffolds in the fields, they would shout and wave away hungry predators.

[http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co...]

Late summer and early fall was a time of abundance.

http://cepuckett.com/inventory/bmz_ca...

“Each cornstalk bore two ears, on the average, with between two hundred and five hundred kernels per ear. The squash ripened from July until September. … When the crops were ready to be harvested, they were gathered into hand baskets and eventually stored in huge baskets in the houses or in storage pits … for later use in cooking” (Rountree 47, 49).

“Food gathered in any season could be prepared in a variety of ways. Food taken on long-distance trips consisted of dried meat, which was eaten” with acorn oil and Indian corn parched and beaten to flour. “Men who journeyed away from home usually expected to live mainly off the game they could shoot … Nuts, berries, oysters, and the juice from green cornstalks were often consumed raw. The cornstalk juice, which was sucked out, was as sweet as cane juice. All other foods were cooked.”

[http://www.coldsplinters.com/audio/La...]

“Oysters, clams, and mussels were roasted; fish were roasted, ungutted and unscaled, either … over a fire or else on a spit.”

[http://de.academic.ru/pictures/dewiki...]

“Drying these foods was accomplished simply by placing them farther from the fire. Fish and shellfish alike were smoked as they were dried … The Powhatans dried oysters and mussels by hanging them upon” sinew strings in the smoke. “Shellfish were also boiled in a bisque that was thickened with cornmeal, while fish were frequently boiled in a stew, the broth of which, like the broth of meat stews, was drunk with relish. … Venison could be either dried in smoke or boiled for immediate consumption” (Rountree 50, 51).

The historian David Beers Quinn describes how the cooking pot was constructed and utilized. “The shell tempered clay was coiled from the bottom upward and was shaped as it was built by fabric (string wound around dowels) tools, which left impressions on the pot. At the bottom tip a cap or point of clay was placed to complete its conical shape. The art was in maintaining an evenly balanced structure and then baking the pot upside down on a slow fire. … For cooking purposes the pot was placed on a heap of earth, point (or knob) downward, to keep it from falling over, and then sticks of wood were placed carefully around it so that the heat reached the pot evenly” (Quinn 195). The pot was filled with water, the food items inserted, and the contents brought to a boil.

Sexual division of labor was clear-cut. “In general, men’s responsibilities took them away from the village. Women’s work focused on the village and its surrounding agricultural fields” (Oberg 23). Women made mats, baskets, pots, and mortars, made clothing, pounded corn, made bread, prepared meals, gathered shellfish, and planted and harvested crops. Box sexes worked hard. “Skeletal remains from Late Woodland sites in the Virginia Tidewater indicate that arthritis began to afflict Indians in their thirties, and that their bodies by this age were beginning to wear out. Life expectancy hovered at around thirty-five years. Few women, it seems, lived long enough to experience menopause, and between a fifth and a third of all children died before age five.

Men hunted and fought. Their role as hunters and warriors shaped their identity as men and their relationships with other beings in the Algonquian cosmos. Men killed in order to preserve, protect, and sustain life. While men killed, women created life. They planted, raised, and tended the crops. They gave birth, creating life anew. They raised the children.” The Algonquian world was a “world of balance where every being was supposed to have its place” (Oberg 23-24). How food was obtained was part of that balance.


Works Cited:

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2008. Print.

Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1985. Print.

Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013. Print.

Sloan, Kim. A New World: England’s First View of America. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2007. Print.

Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Original Sources, the Weroance

First, a few factual statements.

Algonquian-speaking tribal groups in the 16th Century ranged from coastal North Carolina to Canada and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. English explorers/colonizers encountered them at Roanoke in 1584, Jamestown in 1607, and Plymouth in 1620. Algonquians in North Carolina inhabited land that extended northward from the Pamlico River to the northern shore of Albemarle Sound and westward from the Outer Banks to the banks of the Chowan River. Farther south and west lived Iroquois tribal groups.

“Tribal boundaries cannot be established beyond doubt. Allied but independent groups were sometimes regarded as single tribes by the European observers. Thus, the Roanoke, Croatoan, and Secotan tribes are frequently referred to as one tribe … Uncertainty about locations of villages makes assignments to tribes difficult. This applies particularly to the Weapemeoc, Chawanoke, and Moratuc, and to the Algonquian boundary with their [hostile] Iroquoian neighbors. … There is evidence for precontact hostilities between the Secotans and their allies, and the Neusioks and Pomouiks. The Chawanokes were generally on good terms with Virginia Algonquian … but they -- probably like most Algonquian groups of the region--were frequently at war with the [Iroquois] Tuscaroras” (Feest 1).

The Carolina Algonquians called the land and waters they inhabited Ossomocomuck. Their villages can be found on this map.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co...

Original Sources

Almost all that we know about the coastal North Carolina Algonquian people comes from reports written by five Englishmen.

Arthur Barlowe, the captain of one of two ships Walter Raleigh sent to North America in 1584, wrote this report:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

The voyage to Pamlico Sound, the visits to the villages of Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan and the delayed return to Roanoke in 1585 was described by Richard Grenville, commander of the fleet of ships sent by Raleigh to establish a colony. Grenville’s account may be read here:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

Ralph Lane, the governor of the colony begun in 1585 and abandoned in 1586, wrote the following:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

Thomas Harriot and John White were members of Captains Arthur Barlowe and Philip Amadas’s contact with Roanoke Algonquians in 1584. More importantly, they were major players in Raleigh’s attempt to found a colony at Roanoke under Governor’s Lane’s authority (1585-1586). Most of what we know about the Carolina Algonquians is due to these two men’s efforts. A young man, perhaps 24 years old in 1584, Harriot would become a leading scientist of his time. Studying the Algonquian people like an anthropologist, Harriot learned much of their language and much about their culture, behavior, and religious beliefs. John White was a skilled artist. His water color paintings provide us invaluable visual representation. You may read Harriot’s report to Raleigh here:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

Governor Ralph Lane and his settlers/soldiers returned to England in 1586 on ships commanded by Sir Walter Drake. Richard Grenville, assigned to resupply the colony that year, arrived at Roanoke after the colony had left. Here is what Grenville wrote:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

In 1587 Raleigh authorized a second attempt to establish a colony in North America. He appointed John White to be its governor. Here is what White wrote about this attempt.

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

White returned to Roanoke in 1590, hoping to find the people he had been forced to leave in 1587. He wrote the following:

https://web.archive.org/web/200212231...

The Weroance

The leader of Roanoke, Dasemunkepeuc, and possibly Croatoan, Pomeiooc, Aquascogooc, and Secotan and the weroance that Governor Lane eventually killed called himself, initially, Wingina. He was a man of middle age, which meant – even though Thomas Harriot found the Indian population to be remarkably healthy – that he was probably in his mid to late thirties. White’s painting shows him to be muscular, with large eyes and full lips. Not typical of his elite class, he is understated in decoration.
http://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/JohnWh...

According to the historian Michael Leroy Oberg, Wingina “spent most of his time at the village of Dasemunkepeuc … Here there was access to the great variety of resources in the area, including fertile soil for maize agriculture. Wingina and his people could have moved easily back and forth from Dasemunkepeuc to the village on the northern shore of Roanoke Island. … It is unlikely that the island’s thin soil could have supported a large population, and the majority of Wingina’s people must have spent most of their time across the sound on the mainland. Wingina’s followers also interacted closely with Indians” (Oberg 6, 8) from Croatoan suggesting that the three villages were unified under Wingina’s authority.

Oberg explains well the role of a weroance. “Wingina could not command completely, nor could he rule alone. English comparisons of the powers of a weroance with those of a king are misleading. … Linguists have interpreted the word to mean ‘he is rich,’ or ‘he is of influence,’ or ‘he is wise.’ Other weroances limited or influenced Wingina’s actions, and he relied as well on the advice of high ranking counselors who had earned their status through display of bravery or heroism. Priests and ‘conjurors’ also provided counsel that he could not ignore” (Oberg 18).

A weroance was expected to preserve balance and order. In return, his followers paid him tribute. Weroances and their advisors were considered an elite class to whom followers were required to show great deference. According to Thomas Harriot, those who committed offenses against other followers were punished harshly: forfeiture of property, beating, banishment, death. By inflicting such punishment, a weroance sought to restore peace and balance in the community. Those who were dissatisfied with a weroance’s performance could always quit the community.

A weroance was expected to protect his followers from belligerent communities not under his authority. He was expected to lead his followers in battle.

He was expected to secure trade agreements and allies. Overseeing the exchange of trading goods, he was “the conduit through which items from outside flowed into and were diffused throughout the community. The success of the weroance as a leader was predicated at least in part on his ability to secure the objects his people needed and desired. By establishing and overseeing the system, the weroance created reciprocal bonds connecting his community with others in Ossomocomuck and beyond, a major impediment to conflict” (Oberg 21).

To reiterate, weroances oversaw their followers’ major community concerns: its wars, trade, and diplomacy. Balance and order was “the critical core of his people’s values.” He was expected to maintain this balance. “His followers would stick with him so long as he met the needs of his community and the individuals within it.

“After Ralegh’s colonists arrived, Wingina found it difficult to maintain balance and order within his community. Consensus became increasingly difficult to find. A leader whose power rested on the respect of his people and his own ability to persuade, and as well a man curious and honest, he moved cautiously after the newcomers arrived. He found himself caught between Algonquians who saw the English as potentially useful allies, and others who saw the newcomers as a mortal threat to his people’s way of life” (Oberg 21).

John White painted scenes of life in Secotan and Pomeiooc.
http://www2.vcdh.virginia.edu/lewisan...

We witness two ceremonial activities.
http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/page...

http://www.artknowledgenews.com/files...

We see fishermen at work.
http://ncpedia.org/sites/default/file...

Fish roasted
http://web3.encyclopediavirginia.org/...

A man and woman eating
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploa...

White painted portraits of villagers.

A hunter/warrior
http://www.firstcolonyfoundation.org/...

A weroance’s wife and her child, who carries a doll given to her by the English
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

A woman asked to pose
http://www.firstcolonyfoundation.org/...

A priest

http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/thumbn...


Work cited:

Feest, Christian F. “North Carolina Algonquians, Part 1.” 1978. Rootsweb. http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co.... Net.

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2008. Print.




Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Geography

To begin to develop an understanding of the Algonquian people that inhabited North Carolina’s Outer Banks and coastal shores of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the lower portion of the Chowan River in the 1580s, you must start with a map. Not a modern map but one that attempts to identify tribal groups and villages. This map is the best that I can provide.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.co...

Print this out, if you would, for reference as you read this and future posts.

The Outer Banks, which are narrow extensions of sandy terrain, extend about 175 miles from the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina to below Cape Lookout (not revealed on your map). The Banks are separated from the mainland of North Carolina by broad, shallow sounds at the most thirty miles in breadth. Here and there shallow, narrow inlets cut through the banks, allowing river water to escape into the Atlantic Ocean. These inlets are in a constant process of change.

At Cape Hatteras (see #5 village Croatoan), the banks jut far out into the ocean. Gulf Stream currents flow close by, creating a warm atmosphere that permits tropical fruits and plants to thrive. North of the Cape, the Gulf Stream swerves away from the coastline and meets cold water coming down from the Labrador Current, resulting in much turbulence and a serious threat to shipping.

The raw sand of the Banks contains mineral content necessary to stimulate the growth of abundant vegetation. Frequent rainfall has forced the salt content of the sand downward and to the sides of the Banks, and a shallow water table of fresh water exists between the salt water table level and the surface of the Banks. Shallow wells are able to draw fresh water upward from almost any location on the Banks.

Pamlico Sound dominates that area of water between the Banks and the mainland of North Carolina. It is the hub of an extensive network of smaller sounds as well as bays, rivers, creeks, lakes, and ponds. Into Albemarle Sound, to the northwest, flow the Chowan and Roanoke Rivers. Roanoke Island marks the most northern extent of Pamlico Sound.

Inlets to the sounds are filled primarily by southbound ocean currents. New openings are created by the force of fresh water seeking access to the sea. Autumn, more specifically September, is when inlets are usually opened or enlarged.

As the eye of a hurricane approaches the Banks from the Caribbean, winds from the east blow great quantities of ocean water through the existing inlets and push this water as well as much of the water in the sounds well up into the many bays and estuaries of the mainland. When the eye of the hurricane moves north of the Banks, the winds’ direction reverses. Water is pushed across the shallow sounds against the Banks. Old inlets are reopened; new ones are formed.

The number of inlets has varied considerably over the years. At times there have been as many as eleven small inlets that release an average of fifteen billion gallons of water each day into the Atlantic. At other times three fairly large inlets have done so. Since the Banks became a part of recorded history, twenty-five different inlets remained open long enough to receive names and appear on maps. The inlet named Port Ferdinando is the inlet that Captains Amadas and Barlowe used to enter Pamlico Sound just south of Roanoke Island in 1584. It closed sometime before 1657. It was the main entry point of men and supplies for the 1585-1586 Roanoke colony. Oregon Inlet, about a mile south of where Port Ferdinando had existed, was created by a violent hurricane in 1846. During the storm, a ship, the Oregon, was caught on Pamlico Sound. Its crew witnessed the sudden formation of the new inlet and reported it upon reaching safety. Oregon Inlet exists today.

Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds are very shallow. Albemarle Sound’s average depth is 12 to 13 feet. It lies east/west, with prevailing winds from the southwest and west. Any winds over 15 knots can produce steep, uncomfortable seas. The rivers and streams that empty into the Sound’s waters are clear but tea-colored, from tannic acid created by decomposing vegetation along their banks. Here are links to several pictures.

http://www.privatecommunities.com/ima...

http://setsail.com/wp-content/uploads...

http://www.nbep.org/admin/user/ANEP%2...

The Chowan River is nearly two miles wide as it empties into Albemarle Sound near present-day Edenton (town #26 Warawtan on your map). The river begins at the North Carolina-Virginia border where the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers meet. Flowing some 65 miles, it is fed by numerous swampy creeks and streams. Along with the Roanoke River, it supplies most of the fresh water of Albemarle Sound. Surrounded by one of the most extensive swamp forests in the state, the Chowan River supports black bears, river otters, warblers and bald eagles. Lined by bald cypress trees, the river, running mostly north to south, hosts some 18 different species of fish: largemouth and striped bass, white perch, sunfish, catfish, black crappie and more. The lower Chowan River is at its most scenic during the winter months and rarely freezes over. It is home to an abundance of migratory waterfowl in the winter. Here are links to two pictures.

http://media.photobucket.com/user/jim...

http://www.timsaviationadventures.com...

The Roanoke River stretches for 137 miles across North Carolina's coastal plain. Its headwaters are in the Blue Ridge Mountains of southwestern Virginia. The river flows generally east-southeast across the Piedmont of southern Virginia and enters northeastern North Carolina near the Roanoke Rapids’ fall line. The river then zigzags southeast across the coastal plain and then turns north to enter the western end of Albemarle Sound (see Indian village #24, Tandaquomuc). “The river’s floodplain contains the largest intact and least-disturbed bottomland hardwood forest ecosystem remaining in the mid-Atlantic region. The middle section of the Roanoke River is characterized by alluvial forests and large backswamps, while the lower section contains vast tracts of bald cypress and water tupelo swamp forests. The Roanoke River provides a haven for a host of plants and animals, including more than 200 bird species” (Roanoke River Region 1). Because the river originates in the mountains, unlike the Chowan River, its current is strong. Native American inhabitants, experiencing deadly spring floods, called it the "River of Death." Here are links to pictures.

http://origincache-ash.fbcdn.net/1390...

http://www.takemytrip.com/images/448_...

http://www.roadtripamerica.com/photos...

http://api.ning.com/files/4Pr7sO4vZI8...

Pamlico Sound, 80 miles long, is no more than 30 feet deep in places and very wide, up to 30 miles. It has an average depth of about 5 to 6 feet, even well offshore. A person cannot see the mainland from the Outer Banks because he cannot see low-lying land within 20 miles due to the curvature of the Earth. The coastal plains of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds are flat and very swampy. There is little increase in elevation on the mainland for at least 100 miles, where a traveler might reach a height of 500 feet. Considered an estuary itself, Pamlico Sound hosts a number of small estuaries along its west coastline.

An estuary “is any place where freshwater joins and mixes with saltwater. But more typically, an estuary is defined as a partially enclosed coastal body of water, having an open connection with the ocean (for example, via a river), where freshwater from inland is mixed with saltwater from the sea. Estuaries typically occupy coastal areas where effects from the ocean are reduced but still influential. … Estuaries contain salt water and fresh water in different proportions over the length of the estuary and over the course of the day, with more salt water during high tide and less at low tide. Because they are shallow …, sunlight penetrates the water, allowing plants to grow. The rivers that feed the estuaries deposit sediments rich in nutrients, which settle onto the sand and mud of the estuary floor. These conditions create unique habitats for both plants and animals, and provide an environment for biological diversity in species (of fish, shrimp, crabs, clams and oysters) that are able to adapt to the brackish conditions. Estuaries are also good nurseries as they provide a place for these species to hatch and grow before they migrate to the sea to live out their adult lives. …

“Sand bars buffer the impact of waves, while plants and shellfish beds anchor the shore against tides. Swamps and marshes take the initial impact of high winds moving in from the ocean, soak up heavy rain and storm surges, and release the extra water gradually into rivers and groundwater supplies.

…

“Swamps and marshes along the edges of the coast provide feeding grounds and shelter for many adult fish and shellfish. Cypress, tupelo, and swamp maple trees grow in swamp forests, whereas grasses such as black needlerush and cordgrasses predominate in salt marshes. Freshwater marshes support cattails, bullrushes, and reeds. River herring spawn in the swamps, while adult river herring, Atlantic menhaden, and bluefish live in the open water” (Harrell 1).

Here are links to pictures of estuaries and marshes in Pamlico Sound.

http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/grap...

http://www.privatecommunities.com/ima...

http://portal.ncdenr.org/image/image_...

https://woodsholegroup.files.wordpres...

Here are links to pictures of trees frequently found in swamps.

water tupelo -- http://www.honeybeesuite.com/wp-conte...

bald cypress -- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia...

pond cypress -- http://pics.davidbroadwell.com/Landsc...

swamp maple -- http://www.nature.org/cs/groups/webco...

black gum -- http://www.fws.gov/uploadedImages/Reg...

The Algonquian natives of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds were water people well adapted to their environment. They utilized large canoes hollowed out of tulip trees and white cedar. In deciding the locations of their villages, they “tended to favor the northern shores of the region’s sounds and rivers. In summer, the prevailing breezes come out of the south, blowing the northern shores free of mosquitoes. Winter storms originated in the Northeast, with the southern shores lying much more exposed” (Oberg 12).

Historians use tribal names to differentiate Native American populations. A North Carolina Algonquian “tribe” was usually a loose confederation of two or more villages whose inhabitants accepted the authority of one leader -- called a weroance – who made decisions to preserve intra- and inter-village harmony and achieve and maintain peaceful relations with rival tribes. On your map, take notice of these “tribes’: Chawanoke, Weapemeoc, Roanoke, and Secotan. The weroance of the Roanoke tribe in 1584 was Wingina. When the English made contact with the Roanokes that year, Wingina’s main settlement was Dasemunkapeuc (#6 on your map). The island of Roanoke (#20) was under the province of his brother Granganimeo. Croatoan (#5), allied with the Roanokes, was semi-independent. Some historians believe that Wingina also had dominion over Pomeiooc (#17), Aquascogoc (#1), and Secoton (#23) and that he moved annually from village to village taking up temporary residences.

The Weapemeoc villages were all located along the northern bank of Albemarle Sound. Their head weroance in 1584 was Okisko. He had installed his highest subordinates over “the towns of Pasquenoke [#16], Chepanoc [#4], Rickahokinge [not on the map], and Masioming [#8] … Still, Okisko could not control all the inhabitants in these villages” (Oberg 17) … The Weapemeocs were not particularly friendly with the Roanokes.

The Chowanokes were the most powerful and influential confederation of the coastal North Carolina Algonquians. Their weroance, Menatonon, was a frail old man when the English encountered him in 1586. Nevertheless, he had under his authority hundreds of warriors. Villages located on both sides of the Chowan River comprised his confederation. Okisko, the weroance of the Weapemeoc, had sworn obedience to him. “The Choanoacs’ power rested on their access to trading routes in the interior that linked peoples across the Carolinas and Virginia together in an elaborate network of exchange. Occupying this position meant conflict, and the Choanoacs [many Algonquian villages have alternate spellings] fought with the powerful Powhatans [of Jamestown fame] on occasion. … Menatonon also remained an important rival of Wingina, who like him sought opportunities for his people to engage in surprisingly widespread networks of exchange that linked communities across the interior of the continent” (Oberg 17).

The Moratuc are believed not to have been Algonquian. Tribes west of Algonquian settlements – Mandoag, Eno-Shaikori, and Tuscarora – were either Iroquois or Siouans. Aggressive traders, they were the Algonquians’ worst enemies. The Pomouik, probably not Algonquian, were hostile to the southern Pamlico Sound Algonquians. Several years before the English made their first appearance on Pamlico Sound, they had killed in a singular act of treachery many Secoton (#23) villagers.

These are the villages and the sounds, rivers, waterways,”swamps, swamp forests, bare sandy deserts and fertile oases” (Quinn 44) that will appear in my historical novel “Alsoomse and Wanchese.” What historians know about these Algonquians and the events that transpired after Englishmen first encountered Wingina’s people and what they speculate may have happened thereafter offer people who write stories about the past rich material.


Sources Cited:

Harrell, Waverly and Godwin-Myer, Jennifer. “Estuaries in North Carolina: A Primer.” Learn NC: K-12 Teaching and Learning from the UNC School of Education. http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/544. Net

Oberg, Michael Leroy. The Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. University of Pensylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2008. Print.

“Roanoke River Region. The National Conservancy. http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/.... Net

Quinn, David Beers. Set Fair for Roanoke: Voyages and Colonies, 1584-1606. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1985. Print.