 Seventeenth century Monacan territory | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Extinct as a tribe (1728)[1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Languages | |
| ProbablyTutelo-Saponi (extinct) | |
| Religion | |
| Indigenous religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Tutelo,Occaneechi,Monacan,Saponi, possiblyCheraw, other easternSiouan tribes |
TheManahoac, also recorded asMahock, were aIndigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who lived in northernVirginia at the time of European contact. They spoke aSiouan language and numbered approximately 1,000.
They lived primarily along theRappahannock River west of present-dayFredericksburg and theFall Line, and east of theBlue Ridge Mountains. They merged with theMonacan, theOccaneechi, theSaponi and theTutelo. They disappeared from the historical record after 1728.[1]
According to William W. Tooker, the nameManahoac isAlgonquian for "they are very merry",[2] butanthropologistJohn R. Swanton considered this dubious.[3]
After thousands of years of differentIndigenous cultures in present-day Virginia, the Manahoac and otherPiedmont tribes developed from the precontactWoodland cultures. Historically the Siouan-speaking tribes occupied more of the Piedmont area, and theAlgonquian-speaking tribes inhabited the lowlands andTidewater.
The Manahoac were a confederacy of smaller bands.[2] In 1608, the English explorerJohn Smith met with a sizable group of Manahoac above the falls of the Rappahannock River.[2] He recorded that they lived in at least seven villages west of where he had met them. One of their villages was named Mahaskahod, below the confluence of the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers.[2] Hassinunga was near the confluence; Tauxania further upstream on the Rappahannock and Shackaconia upstream on the Rapidan River, with Stegara the most upstream on the Rapidan.[4] Smith also noted that they were at war with thePowhatan andHaudenosaunee[2] but were allied with theMonacan.
As theBeaver Wars upset the balance of power, some Manahoac settled in Virginia near the Powhatans. In 1656, these Manahoac fended off an attack by English andPamunkey, resulting in theBattle of Bloody Run (1656).
By the 1669 census, because of raids by Haudenosaunee tribes from the north during theBeaver Wars and probablyinfectious disease from European contact, the Manahoac were reduced to only 50 bowmen in their former area. Their surviving people apparently joined their Monacan allies to the south immediately afterward.John Lederer recorded the "Mahock" along theJames River in 1670. In 1671 Lederer passed through their former territory but made no mention of any inhabitants. Around the same time, theSeneca people of theHaudenosaunee began to claim the land as their hunting grounds byright of conquest, though they did not occupy it.[3][5][6]
In 1714, Lt. Governor of VirginiaAlexander Spotswood recorded that the Stegaraki subtribe of the Manahoac was present atFort Christanna inBrunswick County. The fort was created by Spotswood and sponsored by theCollege of William and Mary toconvert natives toChristianity and teach them the English language. The other known Siouan-speaking tribes of Virginia were all represented by members at Fort Christanna.
The anthropologistJohn Swanton believed that a group at Fort Christanna, called the Mepontsky, were perhaps theOntponea subtribe of the Manahoac. The last mention of the Ontponea in historical records was in 1723. Scholars believe they joined with the Tutelo and Saponi and became absorbed into their tribes.[3] In 1753, these two tribes were formally adopted in New York by their former enemies, the Iroquois, specifically theCayuga nation. In 1870, there was a report ofNikonha (Tutelo, c. 1765–1871), a "merry old man named Mosquito" living in Canada, who claimed to be "the last of the Manahoac" and the legal owner of much ofnorthern Virginia.[7] He still remembered how to speak theTutelo language.[8]
Like the other Siouan-speaking tribes of Virginia'sPiedmont region (i.e., the Monacan, Tutelo, and Saponi), the Manahoac people lived in various independent villages. These tribes traded, intermarried, and shared cultural celebrations. Manahoac villages were usually along the upperRappahannock River where the soil was most fertile. They practiced a mixture of hunting and gathering as well as farming.
Along the upperJames River, where the closely related Monacan tribe was located, archeologists have found remnants ofcorn andsquash in cooking pits. Also found along the James are the outlines of three oval houses at a site outside the town ofWingina inNelson County, Virginia. Given the close relations of the Monacan and the Manahoac, scholars believe these aspects of their cultures were similar or identical. Many stone tools have been unearthed in areas which the Manahoac inhabited. They are usually made of themilky quartz common in the region. Their pottery was tempered with quartz and sand; it often featured fabric, net, or cord motifs as decoration.[5]
Archaeological evidence shows that anearthen mound burial culture existed in the Piedmont from AD 950 to the time of European contact. It spanned the so-called LateWoodland Period. These burial mounds, some of them reaching heights of at least 6 meters (20 ft), are believed to have been made by the ancestors of the Manahoac and other eastern Siouan-speaking groups. They are unique in that they contained hundreds to thousands of corpses. They are sometimes called "accretional mounds". The people added more soil to them as additional individuals were buried within. Most of the burial mounds have been either completely destroyed by plowing or significantly reduced in size by erosion and flooding.[5]
The Manahoac are sometimes viewed as a confederacy of tribes, or as a single tribe composed of several subtribes. These include the following:[3]
Colonists recorded the name of one village:Mahaskahod; it was most likely located near modernFredericksburg.[3]
The language of the Manahoac is not known, althoughJohn Smith stated that they spoke a language different from that of theMonacan. AnthropologistJames Mooney in 1894 suggested that the Manahoac spoke aSiouan language, based on his speculation that the town calledMonasickapanough was related toSaponi. He also claimed that the townMonahassanugh was the same as the nameNahyssan,Hanohaskie (a variant spelling of a Saponi town), andYesaⁿ (Yesaⁿ is theautonym of theTutelo). His argument was based on the assumption that the initial syllableMo-,Ma- was supposedly a Virginia Siouanmorpheme meaning, "place, earth, country". More recently,Ives Goddard has pointed to problems with Mooney's claimed evidence and argued that it is more probable that these town names are from theVirginia Algonquian language, which was the language of John Smith's guides. Additionally one town appears to be from Algonquianpidgin.[12]
BecauseJohn Lederer stated that two of the tribes he listed spoke the same language, Mooney assumed Lederer'sManagog was a misspelledMonahoac, and that Monahoac and Saponi must be the two tribes with a common language. The common language may, in fact, beVirginia Siouan, which was used as alingua franca spoken by both Siouan andIroquoian peoples. Thus, Mooney's interpretation is not supported by the primary sources. The Manahoac likely spoke multiple languages for trade reasons.[12]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)| Federally recognized | |
|---|---|
| Other consulted tribes | |
| State-recognized | |
| Historic | |
