Podunk (indians)
Podunk is the name for an indigenous people in the southern part of what is now known as New England . It belonged to the Nipmuck group and spoke one of the Algonquin languages . Its distribution area coincided for the most part with the area of what is now Hartford County , Connecticut . English settlers adopted a word from his dialect as a name for their settlement area.
Names
Europeans referred to these people as podunk , but they had no name for themselves, let alone a written language. The word podunk comes from the Algonkindialect and means: “where you sink into the dirt” for a swampy place. The Podunk called their home area Nowashe : "between the rivers". The region north of the Hockanum River was generally referred to as Podunk, south of it as Hockanum ; however, these were not binding terms. In part, the whole area was called the Hockanum. The main settlements were on the Park River at its confluence with the Connecticut River. The Dutch referred to the rivers as "Little River" and "Great River". On a map from the early 17th century, the area appears under the name Nowass, probably a transliteration of the Algonquin word.
history
The valley has been visited by Europeans since around 1631. At that time, the so-called River Tribes lived there - several small clans of Indians who had their residential areas along the Great River ( Connecticut River ) and the Little River ( Park River ) and their tributaries. The area includes land in what is now the parishes of East Hartford , East Windsor , South Windsor , Manchester , parts of Ellington , Vernon , Bolton , Marlborough and Glastonbury . Like other forest peoples, the Podunk set up their summer camps near the rivers. They fished salmon , herrings and lampreys when they were migrating. The men hunted deer and bears as well as lower game. The women planted a number of varieties of corn and beans , dried meat and tanned the hides. They used otter , mink and beaver skins to make clothes and other hides to make wigwams . In winter they moved deeper into the woods, where they fed on the supplies of summer. Many tools and artifacts have been found along the rivers and in the hills. The podunk tribe consisted of three groups:
- Namferoke , who lived near what is now the village of Warehouse Point ;
- Hockanum ( Eng . Hook, hook-shaped), which were led by Tantonimo and lived near the village from which today's Hockanum developed;
- Scanticook ( Eng . At the fork in the river) who lived on the north bank of the Scantic River near the Weymouth area . Their leader was called Foxen (Poxen). Foxen / Poxen witnessed various land contracts in 1640 and became the great adviser to the Mohegan ("wolf people"). His name appears frequently in early records.
In times of danger, they also built small fortifications from palisades and formed closer settlements together with a central fire place in the camp.
English settlers
After the English began to settle in the area around 1630, part of the land was reserved for the podunk by the General Court . During this time the two were Podunks sachems , Waginacut and Arramamet out. They were also associated with the tribes that lived across the Great River , in Windsor. Prior to the Narraganset War, relations between the Podunk and the early English settlers appear to have been largely peaceful. Until about 1675 they lived in close proximity to one another. In the winter of 1635, the poorly equipped settlers in Hartford were kept alive by supplies of "malt, and acorns, and grains" (barley, acorns and grain). The English restricted the podunk more and more. Blacksmiths were not allowed to work for the podunk and only licensed traders were allowed to buy their corn, beaver, game meat or wood. The trade in weapons, horses, dogs, boats or other "dangerous" goods such as wine or alcohol was banned. The podunk were forbidden to enter English houses or to use the weapons and they were also not allowed to bring weapons into the English settlement. In addition, they were arrested if they were found in the fields at night and even shot if they resisted. The podunk were also not allowed to house strays or take in foreign Indians in their settlements. In 1653 they were asked to hand over their weapons as a sign of their trustworthiness. In 1659 Thomas Burnham (1617–1688) acquired the land on which the parishes of South Windsor and East Hartford are today from Sachem Tantinomo. "Fort Hill" is possibly the fort into which the "one-eyed" Tantinomo withdrew during his dispute with Uncas and Sequassen in 1665, when the English tried unsuccessfully to strike a balance between them. The podunk suffered heavy casualties from contagious diseases transmitted by the colonists. Along with the unrest caused by the colonists' rules, their numbers decreased dramatically. In 1736 the Podunk merged with other Schaghticoke groups and the tribe has since died out.
Names
Bog in Algonquin is mostly rendered as "paug". This word comes from “bi”, “po” and “paut” on the other hand mostly means “projection”, “hill”, “Bülte”. Possibly the word was also used in the term "neck". Adam Puit, for example, was probably a podunk that the Dutch referred to as "Frog", the one with a thick neck. Podunk or pautunk, was therefore a land ridge (neck).