Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/63

Rh years, when at his death, he was succeeded by his brother, Philip, in 1662. He held the chief sachemship of the tribe until his death in 1676, at Mount Hope. The name of Philip's wife was Wootonekanuske.

Among the sagamores or sub-sachems of the Wampanoags may be named Watuspaquin, often called by the English, the Black Sachem; his son, William; Uncompoin; Umnathum or Munashum, known as Nimrod; Annawan; Conbatant, Peebee, Tavoser, Capt. Wispoke, Woonkaponehunt, Awashonks, Weetamoo, and others. These underchiefs or rulers of divisions of the tribes were the counsellors of the great chief and formed the council to declare war or transact general business for the whole tribe.

The New England tribes including the Wampanoags were an agricultural people, cultivating corn, beans, tobacco, squashes and other products of the soil. They also subsisted on the wild game of the forests and the fish of the fresh and salt waters. The Wampanoags had a rich soil to cultivate along our rivers and Bay and obtained a plentiful supply of fish from the waters and shores of Narragansett Bay. Rogers Williams speaks of the "social and loving way of breaking up the land for planting corn. All the men, women and children of a neighborhood join to help speedily with their hoes, made of shells with wooden handles. After the land is broken up, then the women plant and hoe the corn, beans and vine apples called squash which are sweet and wholesome; being a fruit like a young pumpkin, and serving also for bread when corn is exhausted." Indian corn was the staple food, parched, pounded to meal and mixed with water. Winslow speaks of a meal of corn bread called mozium, and shad roes boiled with acorns, which he enjoyed at Namasket. Parched meal was their reliance on their journey, and of unparched meal they made a pottage called "nassaump," whence the New England "samp." "For winter stores the Indians gather chestnuts, hazel-nuts, walnuts, and acorns, the latter requiring much soaking and boiling. The walnuts they use both for food