Indian New England Before the MayflowerIn offering here a highly readable yet comprehensive description of New England's Indians as they lived when European settlers first met them, the author provides a well-rounded picture of the natives as neither savages nor heroes, but fellow human beings existing at a particular time and in a particular environment. He dispels once and for all the common notion of native New England as peopled by a handful of savages wandering in a trackless wilderness. In sketching the picture the author has had help from such early explorers as Verrazano, Champlain, John Smith, and a score of literate sailors; Pilgrims and Puritans; settlers, travelers, military men, and missionaries. A surprising number of these took time and trouble to write about the new land and the characteristics and way of life of its native people. A second major background source has been the patient investigations of modern archaeologists and scientists, whose several enthusiastic organizations sponsor physical excavations and publications that continually add to our perception of prehistoric men and women, their habits, and their environment. This account of the earlier New Englanders, of their land and how they lived in it and treated it; their customs, food, life, means of livelihood, and philosophy of life will be of interest to all general audiences concerned with the history of Native Americans and of New England. |
Contents
Preface | |
The Tribes and Their Distribution | |
Personal Characteristics | |
Religion and Philosophy | |
Household and Personal Equipment | |
The Family Meals | |
The Roles of the Sexes | |
Beyond the Round | |
Preparing for Cultivation | |
Cultivated Crops | |
The Seasons Round | |
Trade and Conflict | |
Travel and Communication | |
A Promising Society | |
Bibliography | |
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3rd series Abenaki Aboriginal Agriculture Algonquian beans berries birch bark BMAS boiled Boston Bulletin canoe Cape Cod century Champlain clam coast Collections colonial colonists Conn Connecticut River Connecticut Valley cooking corn cornfields crops cultivated deer Donck dried early Eastern England Indians England tribes English European fields fire fish fruit Garden Gladys Tantaquidgeon Gookin ground Hampshire hills Hist History hunting Ibid Iroquois John John Winthrop Josselyn land Lescarbot Mahicans Maine maize maple sugar Martha's Vineyard Mass Massachusetts Archaeological Society Massachusetts Bay Massachusetts Historical Society Medicine mortar Mourt's Relation Museum Narragansett natives Nipmuck North America North American Indians Northeast Pennacooks Penobscot Pequot Plants Plymouth pumpkins reported Rhode Island River Roger Williams roots seed shell shore skin soil southern New England squash squaw stone strawberries sweet tobacco Town trees variety Vermont villages vols Voyages Wampanoag Western Abenaki wigwam wild winter Winthrop women Wood York