The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is a federally recognized tribe of Pamunkey people in Virginia. They control the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County, Virginia. Historically, they spoke the Pamunkey language.
They are one of 11"Writer's Guide" , Virginia Council on Indians, Commonwealth of Virginia, 2009 Native American tribes in Virginia and an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. The tribe became the Commonwealth of Virginia's first federally recognized tribe receiving its status in January 2016.Federal Register; Vol. 81, No. 86; Wednesday, May 4, 2016; Notices, p. 26,827: "The addition to the list of Indian entities results from the January 28, 2016, Interior Board of Indian Appeals dismissal of a request for reconsideration in docket number 16–003, In Re Federal Acknowledgment of the Pamunkey Indian Tribe."
The Pamunkey people were part of the Powhatan Confederacy, made up various nations in Tsenacommacah. The Powhatan Confederacy was made up of over 30 nations, estimated to total about 10,000 to 15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607.Rountree, Helen C. and E. Randolph Turner III. Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and Their Predecessors. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002. The Pamunkey nation comprised about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total. They numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.
When the English colonists arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful nations in the Powhatan Confederacy. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay.Egloff, Keith and Deborah Woodward. First People: The Early Indians of Virginia. Charlottesville: The University Press of Virginia, 1992.Waugaman, Sandra F. and Danielle-Moretti-Langholtz, Ph.D. We're Still Here: Contemporary Virginia Indians Tell Their Stories. Richmond: Palari Publishing, 2006 (revised edition).
The Pamunkey Tribe is one of only two that retain the reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government.Wood, Karenne (editor). The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail, 2007. Their reservation is located on some of their ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County.
Language
The Pamunkey language is generally assumed to have been similar in nature to Algonquian languages, but only fourteen words have been preserved. The words, which were recorded in 1844 by Reverend E.A. Dalrymple S.T.D., are,A Vocabulary of Powhatan, compiled by Captain John Smith, with two word-lists of Pamumkey and Nansemond from other sources. Evolution Publishing, 1997.
tonshee 'son', nucksee 'daughter', petucka 'cat', kayyo 'thankfulness', o-ma-yah 'O my Lord', kenaanee 'friendship', baskonee 'thank you', eeskut 'go out dog', nikkut 'one', orijak 'two', kiketock 'three', mitture 'four', nahnkitty 'five', vomtally 'six', talliko 'seven', tingdum 'eight', yantay 'ten'.
Except for nikkut 'one', which is clearly similar to Powhatan nekut, none of the words correspond to any known Algonquian language, or to reconstructions of proto-Algonquian. Given the extensive ethnic mixing that occurred among the Pamunkey before 1844, it's possible that Dalrymple's list is from an inter-ethnic pidgin or even a language from an otherwise unknown language family, rather than from the original Pamunkey language.Benita Howell, Richard Levy & Alvin Luckenbach, 'What Is Dalrymple's Pamunkey?', International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. 45, no. 1 (Jan. 1979), pp. 78–80
Way of living Subsistence and relationship to the land The traditional Pamunkey way of life was subsistence living. They lived through a combination of fishing, trapping, hunting, and farming. The latter was developed in the late Woodland Period of culture, roughly the years 900 to 1600. The peoples used the Pamunkey River as a main mode of transportation and food source. The river also provided access to hunting grounds, and other tribes. Access to the river was crucial, because Pamunkey villages were seldom permanent settlements. Because the Pamunkey people did not use fertilizers, they moved their fields and homes about every ten years to allow land to lie fallow and recover from cultivation.
The Pamunkey, and all Virginia tribes, had an intimate, balanced relationship with the animals, plants, and the geography of their homeland. Like other native tribes, they had techniques, such as controlled burning, to clear land for cultivation or hunting. The land belonged to the group as a whole. The chief and council would allot a parcel of cleared ground to a family head for life.
Differing concepts of land and farm animal ownership and use caused some conflicts between the Virginia tribes and English colonists. For native tribes, the land was "owned" only as long as it was farmed; after that, it was available for "public" use. The Englishmen had, instead, laws on private property and believed that the land was theirs as soon as the tribe sold it to them. As a result, when Englishmen allowed land to lie fallow, Native Americans assumed they were free to use it for hunting and gathering. Many Englishmen considered both as encroachments on their private property.
Homes Pamunkey homes, called yehakins, were long and narrow; they were described as "longhouses" by English colonists. They were structures made from bent saplings lashed together at the top to make a barrel shape. Indians covered the saplings with woven mats or bark. The 17th-century historian William Strachey thought that bark was harder to acquire, as he noticed that only higher-status families owned bark-covered houses. In summer, when the heat and humidity increased, the mats could be rolled up or removed to allow more air circulation.Rountree, Helen C. The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture. University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1989.
Inside the house, they built bedsteads along both walls. They were made of posts put in the ground, about a foot high or more, with small poles attached. The framework was about wide, over which reeds were put. One or more mats were placed on top for bedding; more mats or skins served as blankets, with a rolled mat for a pillow. The bedding was rolled up and stored during the day to make the space available for other functions.
Government The Pamunkey practice of matrilineal succession also created some confusion for Englishmen, who finally in the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation recognized the Pamunkey queen.Alfred A. Cave, Lethal Encounters: Englishmen and Indians in Colonial America (2011) University of Nebraska Press at pp. 151,165 As with other surviving members of the Powhatan Confederacy, the Pamunkey adopted a chief and a council composed of seven members, elected every four years. The chief and council execute all the tribal governmental functions as set forth by their laws. Elections used a basket, as well as peas and corn kernels, in the same number as voters. Members first voted for the chief, followed by votes for the seven council members. For each candidate, a corn kernel signified approbation and a pea a "no" vote, or if there were but two candidates, each could be indicated by a type of seed.Pollard, John Garland. The Pamunkey Indians of Virginia, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office
The same 1896 study noted that tribal laws were concerned with, but not limited to, controlling land use, stealing, and fighting (breaking the peace). Instead of using corporal punishment, incarceration, or chastisement, anyone who broke a tribal law was fined or banished. Because the Pamunkey resented that, in the past, outsiders picked out some laws for ridicule, no outsiders are now allowed to see tribal laws.
Tribal laws govern all civil matters. In criminal matters, outside authorities such as a Sheriff or Police, may respectfully notify the Tribal Chief about serving a warrant. But, such action is not legally required. The tribe does not operate a police force or jail. Most tribal members obey the tribal laws out of respect for the chief and the council. The tribe discourages verbal attacks against members. As the former Chief Brown explains, they have strict slander laws because, "We're like a 400-year-old subdivision. If we didn't get along we'd have probably killed each other long before now."Flaherty oag.state.va.us The chief continued to pay the annual tribute to Virginia's governor. This consists of game, usually a deer, and pottery or a "peace pipe". The Pamunkey have been paying such tribute since the treaty of 1646. Making this annual payment has not always been easy. Former Chief Miles remembers one year that was particularly hard, "We couldn't find anything, no deer, no turkeys—nothing. My dad was chief then, and we knew we had to have something to present to the governor; so we went to a turkey farm, bought a live turkey, brought it back to the reservation and killed it. That way we were able to fulfill the terms of the treaty—after all it was killed on the reservation." As far as anyone knows, they have not missed a payment in 342 years.Joanne Kimberlain, "We're Still Here," Virginian-Pilot. June 7–9, 2009: Print.
History Precontact
In the pre-Columbian era, based on archaeological evidence, scholars estimate that various distinct cultures of American Indians occupied this part of the mid-Atlantic coast for more than 10,000 years before European contact. Evidence has been collected by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians. Varying cultures of indigenous peoples of the Americas lived in the areas later occupied by the historic Pamunkey.
The Pamunkey are part of the larger Algonquian-speaking language family. This was composed of a number of tribes who spoke variations of the same language, a language now mostly lost. By 1607, more than 30 tribes were tributaries of the Algonquian Powhatan Confederacy, of which the Pamunkey were the largest and one of the most powerful.Hodge, Frederick Webb (1910). Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 2, p. 198. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office. Powhatan and his daughter Matoaka (better known as Pocahontas to historians), who achieved historical fame, were the Pamunkey Indians. Captain Samuel Argall abducted her as a hostage in an attempt to secure the release of some English prisoners and ammunitions held by her father.
European Arrival Initial contact with European Colonists was around 1570. "And from on at ever briefer intervals until the first permanent English colony was established at Jamestown in 1607, the Powhatan Confederacy was visited by white men: Spanish, French, and English." (Barbour, 5). Scholars estimate that when the English arrived in 1607, the country numbered about 14,000–21,000 people.
Colonists of the first successful English settlement, based at Jamestown, had a complicated relationship with Virginia's tribes. In the winter of 1607, Opechanacanough, Weroance of the Pamunkey tribe, captured Captain John Smith. Smith was brought to Opechancanough's brother, Powhatan. This first meeting between Powhatan and Smith resulted in an alliance between the two people. Powhatan sent Smith back to Jamestown in the spring of 1608 and started sending gifts of food to the colonists.Rountree, Helen C. Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005. If not for Powhatan's donations, the settlers would not have survived through the first winters. As the settlement expanded, competition for land and other resources, and conflict between the European settlers and Virginia tribes, had increased.
Gradual English colonization