Wampanoag Ways
Mini Fact: A Wampanoag home was called a wetu. Sheets of bark covered a wooden frame.
Last week, The Mini Page met the Pilgrims who arrived aboard the Mayflower in 1620. This week, as we celebrate Thanksgiving, we learn about the Wampanoag people who lived in the area where the Mayflower landed.
Native people
The Wampanoag (wahm-pah-no-ag) are one of many nations, or separate groups of people, who lived in North America before Europeans arrived. In fact, they have inhabited the area that is now southeastern Massachusetts for more than 15,000 years. Wampanoag means “people of the first light.”
When settlers arrived from Europe, there were about 40,000 native people living in 67 villages along the East Coast. Today, about 5,000 Wampanoag live in the area.
In the 1600s, the Wampanoag would move according to the seasons. During winter, they would live in forests and valleys, but in spring, summer and autumn, they would live near water, planting crops and fishing for food.
Wampanoag kids
Wampanoag children are treasured by their family. When a baby is born, a ceremony welcomes them and gives thanks for their life.
During the 1600s, children’s parents, aunts, uncles and other relatives would patiently teach them the skills they would need. They would learn by copying adults as they helped with everyday tasks. Children learned to make many things needed for dayto-day living.
Boys and girls grew up with specific duties and chores they were expected to do.
Boys learned to:
• hunt small animals
• fish and make traps;
• make such things as utensils, weapons, tools, canoes and frames for houses;
• protect their village and family. When they were old enough, boys would have to show that they could survive on their own. They would walk into the wilderness with nothing but a bow and arrow, knife and hatchet.
Later, they would rejoin the family. After a special ceremony, they were known not as boys, but as men.
Girls’ duties:
• work in the fields, growing such crops as corn, beans, squash and pumpkins;
• dig for clams and oysters;
• preserve foods;
• make mats, baskets and clay pots. When girls grew up, they were honored in a ceremony that announced to all that they were ready to marry. After marriage, a young woman and her husband would live with her family.