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| Wissatinnewag: 1960 Massachusetts Hwy Dept Aerial Photograph |
Wissatinnewag is listed in Indian Place Names of New
England by John C. Huden, 1962, on page
291, as follows: “Wissatinnewag, Franklin County, Mass? Mahican ‘slippery
hill’? or Nipmuck, ‘shining
hill’? This was an ancient village somewhere on the Connecticut River, 1663”.
It is important to note that the Pocumtuc language is Nipmuck.
In the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico by Frederick Webb Hodge, 1912, page 965, he lists:
“Wissatinnewag. A village apparently on the Connecticut River in central Massachusetts
in 1663”. (Pynchon (1663) in Documents Relating to the Colonial
History of the State of New York, XIII, 308, 1881.”
If one views the 1960 aerial photo taken for the Massachusetts Highway
Department which shows the falls and its relationship to the Wissatinnewag site,
then you can better understand how its native name meaning “shining hill” was
derived. The mist from the falls which cascades onto the site would have been a
much larger volume in the 1600’s, before the present power canal of today
diverts a large portion of the Connecticut River through Turner’s Falls. (See Hoyt’s
“Indian Wars”, (1824), page 128).
In “Indian Deeds of Hampden County” (1905) by Harry Andrew Wright pages 61 and 62,
Wright shows us a copy of the first deed to Deerfield (which is now part of
Greenfield) from 1666, drawn up between John Pynchon and Chaque, a Pocumtuc.
Pynchon remarked about “certain
parsells of land at Pacomtuck (Deerfield) on ye further side or upper side or
North side of Pacumtuck [Deerfield] River [now the present town of
Greenfield]. That is to say
beginning a little about where Pukcommeagon [Green] River runs into Pacomtuck
[Deerfield] River & so a little way up Pukcommeagon [Green] River off to ye
hill Sunsick [West Mountain] westward”.
Chaque will make reference to “Ussowack Wusquiawwag”” near the eastern
part of this deeded land. On page 261 of John Huden’s Indian Place
Names of New England refers to “ussowack”
meaning in Nipmuck “at the end place” or “at the boundary”. The word
Wusquiawwag may be referring to Wissatinnewag which lies to the east of this
1666 parcel.
Some have questioned the location of Wissatinnewag in recent
years, thinking it was another name for Ausatinnoag (meaning “beyond the
mountain”), a settlement near Stockbridge, Massachusetts in Mahican
territory. They claim Pynchon in
writing the letter for the Pocumtuck Confederacy to the Mohawks in 1663,
slipped in the name Ausatinnoag from where his abandoned trading post was,
using a different spelling, one Pynchon had never used, to protect the Mahican village from the
Mohawks. One has to question why?* The Mahican tribes were at peace with the
Mohawks at the time. If Pynchon wanted them protected why would he have armed
them and sent them out against the Dutch and Mohawks in 1664? This was part of
his “plan for the eventual conquest of the Hudson Valley”, that he was among
the New Englanders who accepted the Dutch surrender in 1664 (Possessing
Albany by Donna Merwick, 1991). Both John
Huden and Frederick Hodge place Wissatinnewag on the Connecticut River, while
at the same time placing Ausatinnoag in Berkshire County, Massachusetts (Indian
Place Names of New England by John C.
Huden, 1962, page 36) and Aussatinnoag at Stockbridge (Handbook of
American Indians North of Mexico by
Frederick Webb Hodge, 1912, page 1030). There is no confusion of the name for
both these authors. The Pocumtuc/Nipmuck name Wissatinnewag, “Shining Hill”,
using references from Frederick Hodge, John Huden, the Chaque deed of 1666,
Pynchon’s listing of another village north of Pocumtuck on the Connecticut
River and his 1666 location of a village at the falls all point to only one
location. That site is below and directly in front of what is now Turners Falls
and, on the other side of the river, in Greenfield.
Welcome to Wissatinnewag – a village with 12,000 years of
continuous occupation. Evidence includes the many trails and three fishing
stations and a burial ground. Wissatinnewag was a sacred village which had a
breathtaking view of the magnificent falls and its plentiful fishing. Many
tribes, including the Mohawks and beyond, added to the population of the
year-round village during the fish runs. It was a place of peace to work out
difference, learn new technologies (pottery, agriculture, etc.) and a place to
possibly meet a future mate.
The deed to the Wissatinnewag village is currently held by
the Nolumbeka Project. For
information about this organization, visit www.nolumbekaproject.org.
*Excerpt from Locating “Wissatinnewag”: A Second Opinion,
Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Summer 2007. Volume 35, Issue 2, Page 144
by Lion G. Miles
“John Pynchon acted as agent for the Indians of the
Connecticut River Valley, those whom he called “our Indians”. He had no
jurisdiction over the Mohicans of the Hudson Valley, known then as “Albany
Indians” and later as “New York Indians”. Thus he had no authority in 1663 to
petition the Dutch in favor of any Indians on the Housatonic. They would have
sent their petitions directly to the Dutch authorities. **
**Calendar of Dutch Historical Manuscripts in the Office
of the Secretary of State, Albany, New York, 1630 – 1664 (Albany: Weed, Parsons, & Company, 1865), pages
211, 291; and Documents of Colonial New York XIII, 168, 310.
William A. Sarna, professor emeritus of anthropology at the State University of New York, College at Oneonta, references Wissatinnewag on page 140 of From Homeland to New Land: A History of the Mahican Indians: 1600 – 1830 published in 2013. Footnote 65, N.Y.C.D., page 308, states“’Wissatinnewag’ is not a linguistic/phonetic variant of Housatonic, as Bruchac and Thomas ‘Locating Wissatinnewag’ have claimed. “ (Ives Goddard, personal comment, 2009). Goddard is curator and senior linguist in the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. A specialist in Algonquian languages, he serves as the linguistic editor and technical editor of the Handbook of North American Indians.
A member of the Friends of Wissatinnewag Council of Elders and one of the last native speakers of the Western Abenaki language, Grandmother Cecile Wawanolett of Odanak, Quebec, confirmed the Algonquin sources, pointing out that "wissit" (slippery) and "noag"a little used word for "hill"would be combined to produce "Wissit-i- noag"-- an apt name of a village whose slopes extended down to the base of the falls and thus would have received a constant sparkling spray. Her photo can be found at http://nolumbekaproject.blogspot.com/p/wissatinnewag.html
William A. Sarna, professor emeritus of anthropology at the State University of New York, College at Oneonta, references Wissatinnewag on page 140 of From Homeland to New Land: A History of the Mahican Indians: 1600 – 1830 published in 2013. Footnote 65, N.Y.C.D., page 308, states“’Wissatinnewag’ is not a linguistic/phonetic variant of Housatonic, as Bruchac and Thomas ‘Locating Wissatinnewag’ have claimed. “ (Ives Goddard, personal comment, 2009). Goddard is curator and senior linguist in the Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. A specialist in Algonquian languages, he serves as the linguistic editor and technical editor of the Handbook of North American Indians.
A member of the Friends of Wissatinnewag Council of Elders and one of the last native speakers of the Western Abenaki language, Grandmother Cecile Wawanolett of Odanak, Quebec, confirmed the Algonquin sources, pointing out that "wissit" (slippery) and "noag"a little used word for "hill"would be combined to produce "Wissit-i- noag"-- an apt name of a village whose slopes extended down to the base of the falls and thus would have received a constant sparkling spray. Her photo can be found at http://nolumbekaproject.blogspot.com/p/wissatinnewag.html
