Pamunkey Native American Tribal Seal.
The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is one of 11 Virginia Indian tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the state's only federally recognized tribe, receiving its status in 2015. The historical tribe was part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up of over 30 tribes, estimated to total about 10,000–15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey tribe made up about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.
When the English arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful groups of the Powhatan chiefdom. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay.
The Pamunkey tribe is one of only two that still retain reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government. The Pamunkey reservation is located on some of its ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County, Virginia. The Mattaponi reservation, the only other in the state, is nearby on the Mattaponi River.
The traditional Pamunkey way of life was subsistence living. They lived through a combination of fishing, trapping, hunting, and farming. The latter was developed in the late Woodland Period of culture, roughly 900 CE - 1600 CE. The peoples used the Pamunkey River as a main mode of transportation and food source. The river also provided access to hunting grounds, and other tribes. Access to the river was crucial, because Pamunkey villages were seldom permanent settlements. Because the Pamunkey people did not use fertilizers, they moved their fields and homes about every ten years to allow land to lie fallow and recover from cultivation.
The Pamunkey, and all Virginia tribes, had an intimate, balanced relationship with the animals, plants, and the geography of their homeland. Like other native tribes, they had techniques, such as controlled burning, to clear land for cultivation or hunting. The land belonged to the group as a whole. The chief and council would allot a parcel of cleared ground to a family head for life.
Differing concepts of land and farm animal ownership and use caused some conflicts between the Virginia tribes and English colonists. For native tribes, the land was "owned" only as long as it was farmed; after that, it was available for "public" use. The Englishmen had, instead, laws on private property and believed that the land was theirs as soon as the tribe sold it to them. As a result, when Englishmen allowed land to lie fallow, Native Americans assumed they were free to use it for hunting and gathering. Many Englishmen considered both as encroachments on their private property.
Pamunkey homes, called yihakans (or yehakins), were long and narrow; they were described as “longhouses” by English colonists. They were structures made from bent saplings lashed together at the top to make a barrel shape. Indians covered the saplings with woven mats or bark. The 17th-century historian William Strachey thought that bark was harder to acquire, as he noticed that only higher-status families owned bark-covered houses. In summer, when the heat and humidity increased, the mats could be rolled up or removed to allow more air circulation.
Inside the house, they built bedsteads along both walls. They were made of posts put in the ground, about a foot high or more, with small poles attached. The framework was about four feet (1.2 m) wide, over which reeds were put. One or more mats were placed on top for bedding; more mats or skins served as blankets, with a rolled mat for a pillow. The bedding was rolled up and stored during the day to make the space available for other functions.
Based on archaeological evidence, scholars estimate that various distinct cultures of Native Americans occupied this part of the mid-Atlantic coast for more than 10,000 years before European contact. Evidence has been collected by archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians. Varying indigenous peoples of the Americas lived in the areas later occupied by the historic Pamunkey.
The Pamunkey are part of the larger Algonquian-speaking language family. This was composed of a number of tribes who spoke variations of the same language, a language now mostly lost. By 1607, more than 30 tribes were tributaries of the Algonquian Powhatan Confederacy, of which the Pamunkey were the largest. They were one of the most powerful tribes. Powhatan and his daughter Matoaka (Pocahontas), who achieved historical fame, were Pamunkey Native Americans. She married a Patawomeck tribesman named Kocoum three years before Captain Samuel Argall abducted her as a hostage in an attempt to secure the release of some English prisoners and ammunitions held by her father.
Today, about 200 tribal members remain, many of whom live at least part-time on their 1,200-acre (4.9 km2) reservation. The Pamunkey have been able to survive because of their ability to adapt as a tribe. Withstanding pressure to give up their reservation lands has helped them maintain traditional ways. Men use some of the old methods for fishing, part of the tribe's traditional heritage. They also continue to hunt and trap on reservation lands.
In 1918, the tribe built a shad hatchery to ensure continuation of an important food source. When shad are caught, the eggs of females are taken and placed into a bucket. Sperm from males are put into the same bucket. At holding tanks, the fertilized eggs are allowed to grow and hatch. Once the new fish are grown enough, usually after 21 days, they are flushed back into the river. Chief Miles estimated that seven million fry were put back into the river in 1998 and probably triple that number in 1999.
The Commonwealth of Virginia has always recognized the Pamunkey tribe, with formal relations dating back to the treaties of 1646 and 1677. However, since the United States did not exist at the time of those treaties, no formal relations existed between the Pamunkey and the federal government. In 1982, the Pamunkey began the process of applying for federal recognition. Their formal application met with opposition from MGM Casinos, which feared potential competition with its planned casino in Prince George's County, Maryland, and from members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who noted that the tribe had historically forbidden intermarriage between its members and black people. The interracial marriage ban, which had long been unenforced and was formally rescinded in 2012, was a relic of the tribe's attempt to circumvent Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which recognized only "White" and "Colored" people. The Bureau of Indian Affairs initially said that the Pamunkey had met its requirements for federal recognition in January 2014, but the final decision was repeatedly delayed until July 2, 2015, when the BIA granted them formal recognition. In February 2016 the Pamunkey received a court victory over a challenge to their right to exist.*
AKBAL
Kin 63: Blue Spectral Night
I dissolve in order to dream
Releasing intuition
I seal the input of abundance
With the spectral tone of liberation
I am guided by my own power doubled.
The dimension of art is the dimension of universal self-creation.*
*Star Traveler's 13 Moon Almanac of Synchronicity, Galactic Research Institute, Law of Time Press, Ashland, Oregon, 2016-2017.
The Sacred Tzolk'in
Anahata Chakra (Silio Plasma)
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