Writing "Alsoomse and Wanchese" -- Algonquian Food
Carolina Algonquians in 1584 subsisted on a seasonally determined,
environmentally controlled diet. They
hunted, gathered, and grew food. On the
Outer Banks and the shores of Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds and the banks of the
rivers emptying into them survival required good fortune, specialized knowledge,
hard work, and a reckoning of the passage of time.
Historians do not know how Wingina’s people marked time. Likely they identified it like their Algonquian
neighbors to the north, the Powhatans, who divided the year into five
seasons. According to John Smith, winter
was called Popanow, spring Cattapeuk, summer Cohattayough, the earing of their corn Nepinough, and the harvest and the falling of leaves Taguitock. Additionally, they marked shorter passages of
time by a year’s succession of full moons.
Algonquian people across the Eastern and Northern parts of North
American named twelve full moons and, periodically, a thirteenth moon. The Old Farmer’s Almanac provides this
identification.
Month Moon
Name in English Why the
Name
January Wolf
Moon Hungry
wolf packs howled at night
February Snow
Moon Heaviest
snowfalls in the middle of winter
March Worm Moon Start of spring as earthworms are eaten by
birds
April Pink Moon An early spring flower called “moss
pink”
started to bloom
May Flower Moon Many types of flowers
bloom
June Strawberry Moon Strawberries were ready to be
picked
July Buck Moon New antlers of buck
deer began to form
August Sturgeon Moon Sturgeon, found in the Great
Lakes , were
easily caught at this time
September Harvest Moon Farmers could continue to harvest under
the light of the moon
October Hunter’s Moon Hunters tracked and killed prey by
moonlight
November Beaver Moon Time to set beaver traps before the swamps
froze
December Cold Moon The
cold of winter sets in
Tribal groups related their full moons to specific activities
and environmental events. Tribes that
inhabited dissimilar areas of North America
identified their moons differently. For
instance, the Passamaquoddy of the Great Lakes
called January “whirling wind moon.” The
Abenaki of the Northeast called February “makes branches fall in pieces
moon.” The Shawnee of
the Midwest called March “sap moon.” The Cheyenne
of the Great Plains called April the “moon
when the geese lay eggs.” The Cree
called their May moon “frog moon.” The
Choctaw called June “blackberry moon.” The
Comanche called July “hot moon.” The
Passamaquoddy called August’s full moon “feather shedding moon.” The Omaha Carolina
What did Wingina’s subjects eat
and when did they eat it?
“In the late winter and early
spring, Wingina’s people lived primarily upon fish.” According to Harriot, there was plenty of
sturgeon as well as herring. “Alewives
and shad began their run in March, and might have remained available into
June. Wingina’s people used weirs to
trap fish, but also speared them in the shallows or from their dugout canoes.”
[http://ncpedia.org/sites/default/files//images_bio/White_John_fishing_British_Museum_ps207966_l.jpg]
“Different species of fish
preferred waters of different salinity and depth, so doing this vital work
required an intimate knowledge of the environment” (Oberg 22). Herring could be smoked to last for a
considerable length of time.
Because fishing was so vital to
their survival, coastal Algonquians were masters of the construction of dugout
canoes. “A group of thirty of these
canoes was recently discovered in the mud of Lake Phelps (in what is now
Pettigrew State Park, north of Lake Mattamuskeet) where they had been stored
over the winters between 2400 BC and AD 1400” (Sloan 108).
According to Thomas Harriot, the
construction of a dugout canoe began with “the slow patient process of burning
through the trunk so as not to damage the main body of the tree. When the tree had fallen, every branch (and,
of course, the top) was carefully removed by fire. The tree trunk was then lifted and placed on
a stand, made from branches laid between two sets of crossed and tied poles
like a saw-horse. The bark was scraped
off and the hollowing process begun.” In
John White’s painting “sharp shells, conch and scallop we suspect, are shown
being used as scrappers, first to remove the bark and then, after fires have
been lit in the trunk, to hollow out the interior by scratching at the charred
wood, until the whole interior of the tree has been excavated. The wood of the white cedar and the tulip
tree was especially suited for this purpose as the inner layers are not
necessarily as hard as the outer. The
art and craft of making these canoes … was a task for the winter, when leaves
were off and the sap was down” (Quinn 194).
“The finished dugout was a long,
round-bottomed, thick-walled craft … The biggest canoes were about four feet
deep and up to fifty feet long, with a carrying capacity of some forty
men. However, most canoes were smaller,
with room for between ten and thirty people with baggage.”
Some evidence exists that
Algonquians used fire in their canoes to attract fish at night. “… the fire was made [on a raised hearth] at
the bow of the canoe, and the canoe was paddled through the shoal water near
the shore. The fish which gathered about
the canoe were speared” (Rountree 34).
The use of weirs was essential. The purpose of a fish weir is to obstruct the
direction that fish swim in shallow, tide-influenced waters and direct them
into an enclosure that makes it difficult for them to escape. Thomas Harriot described the Carolina
“Algonquians also hunted small
game during this portion of the year – turkeys, squirrels, and rabbits – and
they could harvest crabs and shellfish, the latter in abundance” (Oberg 22).
In May and June the Algonquian
natives began planting their fields.
“They lived on acorns, walnuts, and fish during these months, along with
whatever corn reserves they still had on hand” (Oberg 22). They supplemented their food supply with
fish, crabs, oysters, turtles, berries, and meat that they could obtain
hunting. It was the leanest time of
year. Men and women broke the upper part
of the ground to uproot weeds, grasses, and the stubble of cornstalks. After the fields were cleared, the women set
about planting corn seeds, beginning in one corner of the plot, poking holes in
the ground and inserting four corn seeds in each hole. Corn and beans would be planted up to three
times “through mid-June, so that in a good crop year there was ripe corn to eat
from August … through October” (Rountree 47).
The women would leave about a yard of space between each hole for the
planting of beans (their vines would climb corn stalks), squash, and
sunflowers.
During the remainder of the
summer Wingina’s people “continued to live on fish, shellfish, and small game, as
well as the walnuts, acorns, and berries that had been dried and preserved over
the course of the year” (Oberg 23).
Deer, rabbits, black bear, and waterfowl were hunted. As the crops grew, boys served as live
scarecrows. Seated on small, covered
scaffolds in the fields, they would shout and wave away hungry predators.
Late summer and early fall was a
time of abundance.
“Each cornstalk bore two ears,
on the average, with between two hundred and five hundred kernels per ear. The squash ripened from July until September. …
When the crops were ready to be harvested, they were gathered into hand
baskets and eventually stored in huge baskets in the houses or in storage pits
… for later use in cooking” (Rountree 47, 49).
“Food gathered in any season
could be prepared in a variety of ways.
Food taken on long-distance trips consisted of dried meat, which was
eaten” with acorn oil and Indian corn parched and beaten to flour. “Men who journeyed away from home usually
expected to live mainly off the game they could shoot … Nuts, berries, oysters, and the juice from
green cornstalks were often consumed raw.
The cornstalk juice, which was sucked out, was as sweet as cane juice. All other foods were cooked.”
“Oysters, clams, and mussels
were roasted; fish were roasted, ungutted and unscaled, either … over a fire or
else on a spit.”
“Drying these foods was
accomplished simply by placing them farther from the fire. Fish and shellfish alike were smoked as they
were dried … The Powhatans dried oysters
and mussels by hanging them upon” sinew strings in the smoke. “Shellfish were also boiled in a bisque that
was thickened with cornmeal, while fish were frequently boiled in a stew, the
broth of which, like the broth of meat stews, was drunk with relish. …
Venison could be either dried in smoke or boiled for immediate
consumption” (Rountree 50, 51).
The historian David Beers Quinn
describes how the cooking pot was constructed and utilized. “The shell tempered clay was coiled from the
bottom upward and was shaped as it was built by fabric (string wound around
dowels) tools, which left impressions on the pot. At the bottom tip a cap or point of clay was
placed to complete its conical shape.
The art was in maintaining an evenly balanced structure and then baking
the pot upside down on a slow fire.
… For cooking purposes the pot
was placed on a heap of earth, point (or knob) downward, to keep it from
falling over, and then sticks of wood were placed carefully around it so that
the heat reached the pot evenly” (Quinn 195).
The pot was filled with water, the food items inserted, and the contents
brought to a boil.
Sexual division of labor was
clear-cut. “In general, men’s
responsibilities took them away from the village. Women’s work focused on the village and its
surrounding agricultural fields” (Oberg 23).
Women made mats, baskets, pots, and mortars, made clothing, pounded
corn, made bread, prepared meals, gathered shellfish, and planted and harvested
crops. Box sexes worked hard. “Skeletal remains from Late Woodland sites in
the Virginia Tidewater indicate that arthritis began to afflict Indians in
their thirties, and that their bodies by this age were beginning to wear
out. Life expectancy hovered at around
thirty-five years. Few women, it seems,
lived long enough to experience menopause, and between a fifth and a third of
all children died before age five.
Men hunted and fought. Their role as hunters and warriors shaped
their identity as men and their relationships with other beings in the
Algonquian cosmos. Men killed in order
to preserve, protect, and sustain life. While
men killed, women created life. They
planted, raised, and tended the crops.
They gave birth, creating life anew.
They raised the children.” The
Algonquian world was a “world of balance where every being was supposed to have
its place” (Oberg 23-24). How food was
obtained was part of that balance.
Works Cited:
Oberg, Michael Leroy. The
Head in Edward Nugent’s Hand. University of Pennsylvania
Press, Philadelphia
Quinn, David Beers. Set
Fair for Roanoke University of North
Carolina Press, Chapel Hill ,
1985. Print.
Rountree, Helen C. The
Powhatan Indians of Virginia University of Oklahoma
Sloan, Kim. A New World: England ’s
First View of America University of North Carolina Press, Chapel
Hill , 2007. Print.
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