=Annual Cycle=: The environment of coastal southern New England was
rich in a variety of wild food resources. Because these resources
were available seasonally in several differing localities, the
Wampanoags, who lived by a combination of hunting, fishing,
collecting, and horticulture, moved several times during the year.
Beginning in about April, large numbers of Indians, probably the
populations of several localized winter camping groups, would gather
at the falls of certain rivers for the upstream runs of fish such as
herring.[25] Migratory birds were also taken at this time.[26] The
period of taking fresh water and androgynous fish along streams and
in lakes continued until planting season, when the Wampanoags moved
to the coast.
Summer was a time of gardening; it was also the time when the vast
array of marine resources was exploited. In addition, summer brought
an abundance of shore birds. Planting involved two crops, with people
sometimes moving from a house by an early field to one by a later
field in the middle of the summer.
Deer were hunted in the fall; men moved away to the forest to catch
the migrating animals. Sometimes women and children would be included
in the hunting expedition, if the distance to be traveled was not too
far from their summer home. But some people stayed in their summer
residences through the hunting season, probably to harvest the last
crop. Hunting sometimes lasted until the snow was too deep to move in.
After hunting season the fall and summer encampments were abandoned,
and people moved inland, joining with other summer village groups to
take up winter quarters in what Williams describes as “thick warme
vallies”. There was greater protection from the weather away from the
shore, and the warm weather food resources were gone—even the fish
moved offshore into deeper waters. From December or January until
April, Indians occupied these winter camps and lived on food they had
stored during summer and fall and on what could be caught through the
ice or trapped during the winter. With the return of spring, they
would once again congregate at their fishing places.[27]
=Collecting=: A number of wild plants were utilized by the Wampanoags
for food. These included wild peas, strawberries, gooseberries,
raspberries, currants, chestnuts, acorns, walnuts, ground nuts,
and the Jerusalem artichoke.[28] Doubtless other nuts, roots, and
berries not specifically named by the early observers were also
collected.[29] The ground nut (_Apios tuberosa_) was one of the most
important of the wild roots that the Indians used for food.[30] It
also helped the Pilgrims keep away starvation during the winter of
1623.
A part of the inventory of collected foods consisted of shellfish.
Clams were dug by the women at low tide. Also noted specifically
were: horseshoe crab, lobster, oyster, crab, soft-shelled clam, and
mussel.[31] The following passage tells of the troublesome quest for
lobsters:
This is an every dayes walke, be the weather cold or hot, the
waters rough or calme, they must dive sometimes over head and
eares for a Lobster, which often shakes them by their hands with
a churlish nippe, and bids them adiew. The tide being spent, they
trudge home two or three miles, with a hundred weight of Lobsters
at their backs, and if none, a hundred scoulds meete them at home,
and a hungry belly for two dayes after.[32]
=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:
As we wandered we came to a tree, where a young sprit was bowed
down over a bow, and some acorns strewed underneath. Stephen
Hopkins said, it had been to catch some deer. So as we were looking
at it, William Bradford being in the rear, when he came looked
also upon it, and as he went about it, it gave a sudden jerk up,
and he was immediately caught by the leg. It was a very pretty
device, made with a rope of their own making, and having a noose
as artificially made as any roper in England can make, and as like
ours as can be....[45]
These devices were also sometimes used for trapping moose, bears,
wolves, wild cats and foxes.[46]
Most hunting was carried out during the fall, after a spring and
summer of watching the habits and locations of the deer.[47] Ten
to twenty or more men from a village would move into temporary
quarters in the woods to hunt at this time, each man retiring to
his own well-defined hunting territory of “... two, three or foure
miles, where hee sets thirty, forty, or fiftie Traps....”[48] It was
necessary to tend such a trapline closely, since the human hunter
competed with other carnivores for his kill. A circuit of the traps
was made every two days. Even so, the hunter might find that a wolf
had been there before him, seeing which, he would set to building a
trap for the wolf as well.[49]
Unlike the two proceeding techniques, taking deer by means of
drives required the cooperative efforts of a number of people. This
number might range from twenty to three hundred, according to one
observer.[50] Fences of brush were built, sometimes a mile or two
in length, through the woods, in the shape of a funnel. Deer were
chased into the wider end, and Indians waited at the narrow end to
shoot them as they passed. Since it was possible for the deer to
leap over the fence, the hunters were careful not to startle them.
Working at night, they set snares for the deer that had escaped their
arrows.[51] If the evidence from other Indian groups can be applied
in this case, it can be said that the hunting party included women
and older children as well as the hunters themselves, and that these
former were stationed along the length of the brush fence, outside
it, to keep the deer from jumping over.
There is evidence that another technique of hunting common in North
America, especially among the Algonquians farther north, was also
used by the Wampanoags: driving the deer into water where they are
more vulnerable to the hunters. There is no direct description of
this process taking place, but there is the information that laws
made special provision for paying the sachem within whose territory a
deer was shot in the water.[52] And Williams tells us that there is a
special word to designate the skin of such a deer.[53]
Another hunting device, used for beavers, otters, and wolves, was
the deadfall.[54] One variety was made by piling up a large number
of rocks, designed to fall on the animal which entered the trap.[55]
This style of trap was used because these were animals capable of
gnawing their way out of a trap that left them alive.[56]
Apparently allied to hunting, at least in part, was the practice of
setting fire to the woods at intervals, in order to burn out the
undergrowth.[57] Where this was not done the woods were difficult
to travel through, and thick scrub would have hampered deer drives
considerably.[58]
=Marine Hunting=: Marine hunting was not a major activity of the
Wampanoags as it was of the Indian groups further to the north;
however, it was practiced to some extent. Seals were taken as they
napped on rocks in the warm sun.[58] Various species of whale were
also common along the more exposed coasts, but it is not known if the
Wampanoags actually hunted them in boats. They did make use of both
the flesh and the oil of those that were cast up on the beaches.[59]
=Fishing=: Fish were a major dietary item in the spring and continued
to be of importance during the remainder of the year. Both fresh
and salt water fish were taken. These included: bass, bream, cod,
mackerel, flatfish,[60] skate, haddock, striped bass, sturgeon,
Atlantic salmon, shad, herring, frostfish,[61] eels, lampreys, trout,
roach, dace, pike, perch, catfish and pickerel.[62] Of these the
salmon, trout, shad, herring, bass, and sturgeon run up the fresh
water streams from the sea.[63] Trout, roach, dace, pike, perch,
catfish, and pickerel are fresh water species only.[64]
Techniques for catching fish varied with the circumstances.[65]
The hook and line apparently came in for a good deal of use.[66]
However, the only specific fish for which its use is mentioned are
bass and cod.[67] To take these fish, the hooks were baited with
lobsters.[68] Probably the hook and line was used for ice fishing
during the winter, and if so it was also used for pike, perch, bream,
and pickerel.[69]
Nets were used to take sturgeon.[70] Nets were placed across rivers
at the falls to take bass. The trapped fish were then shot with
arrows or speared.[71] Bass were also caught in weirs.[72] The
tending of nets went on at night as well as during the day, the
fishermen resting on the shore near small fires until it was time
to check their nets.[73] Sturgeon were also taken at night—using
a different technique. A torch was waved about over the side of
the canoe to lure the fish. When the fish came near, an Indian in
the canoe would drive a harpoon into his belly. Thus secured, the
struggling fish was dragged back to shore.[74] The method of taking
eels was to wade into the water, tread them out of the mud with the
feet, then grab them.[75]