The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century : $b An ethnohistorical surveyMarten, Catherine
History
The Wampanoags in the seventeenth century : $b An ethnohistorical survey
Marten, Catherine
Indians of North America -- New England -- History -- 17th century; Wampanoag Indians
=Fowling=: The various types of fowl that were taken included
turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, cormorants, and cranes.[32] This
is only a partial list (again the kinds cited specifically by
contemporary sources) of the kinds of birds that were actually
hunted; there was an abundance of both shore and land birds to be
taken at various seasons.[33] Turkeys seem to have been particularly
numerous.[34] Pigeons were abundant in Worchester County, so much so
that Williams describes it as having been called “Pigeon Countrie”.
They were attracted by ripe strawberries and the old garden plots of
the Indians, and they were eaten in great numbers because they were
well-liked and easy to kill.[35]
The techniques of taking fowl were various. Shooting with bow and
arrow was one method, and Indians were very anxious to get guns
and shot from the English for the same purpose.[36] Williams says
that hunting involved enduring the weather, “... wading, lying, and
creeping on the ground, &C.”[37] The method of getting cormorants was
to sneak up on them at night as they slept on the rocks along the
shore.[38] Netting birds at their feeding places was another way of
capture.[39]
=Hunting and Trapping=: Among the animals hunted or trapped were
deer, moose, beaver, bear, wolf, wild cat, racoon, otter, muskrat,
and fox.[40] While all of these were eaten, the importance of the
smaller animals lay mainly in their pelts. Deer seem to have been
the most important of the animals that were hunted.[41] Moose and
bear were also of major importance in New England, according to
the evaluation of William Wood.[42] Probably the deer was more
important to southern New England groups like the Wampanoags, with
the frequency and relative importance of moose rising as one traveled
northward.
Techniques for taking deer fall into three categories: stalking and
shooting, the use of snares, and the use of drives.[43] The stalking
method calls to mind the familiar image of an Indian stealthily
pursuing a deer through the forest with great skill and patience,
using bow and arrow as his weapons. No less important, however, was
the use of snares. A snare for deer was made by bending a springy
sapling down, fastening it in place, and affixing some sort of noose
that would catch the deer by the leg when he, by stepping into it,
released the fastening that held the tree down. Acorns were used to
bait the snare. Wood tells us that the traps were “... so strong as
it will tos a horse if hee be caught in it....”[44] When the Pilgrims
went exploring on Cape Cod they encountered such a device:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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