Interesting Links

(and Other Stuff)

Here are some links and items that I think are pretty neat. I have also included a few words and phrases of the Pamunkey Indians. Their history, and especially the story of Pocahontas, provided a lot of inspiration for my novel.

The story of Pocahontas
http://www.nps.gov/archive/colo/Jthanout/Pocahnts.html

The Wikipedia entry for William Strachey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Strachey

William Strachey's book
The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia
is available through Google Books.

An article on MSNBC about the team of linguists who created the Native American dialog for the movie "A New World".  These guys used a computer from the '70s to extrapolate a full vocabulary for the film from Strachey's original list.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10950199

The Wikipedia entry for the Pawmunkey tribe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamunkey

The Wikipedia entry for the Powhatan tribe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powhatan

The official web site of the Pawmunkey tribe http://www.baylink.org/Pamunkey/

The official web site of the Powhatan tribe http://www.powhatan.org/

Words:
(sources can be found on the Bibliography page)

My notes on the Powhatan language came from 2 sources.  One was the book "The Historie of Travaile Into Virginia Britannia" by William Strachey.  Strachey lived in Jamestown, and wrote down a list of 600 Powhatan words, which was the same language used the Pamunkey tribe.
The other source was from Capt. John Smith, although he only created a 150 word list.  

Here is a sample from Capt. John Smith’s list of Pamunkey words and phrases, some of the few phrases ever recorded - and this is the phrase I particularly like! 

“Kekaten pokahontas patiaquagh ningh tanks manotyens neer mowchick rawenock audowgh.” 

This translates as, ”Bid Pokahontas bring hither two little baskets, and I will give her white beads to make her a chaine.”   Hmmm… 

Here is a sampling of some Pamunkey words from Wm. Strachey’s list published in 1612:

Apooke = Tobacco;
Amonsens = Daughter;
Asqweowan = Arrow;
Vtssetecuttawsuw = To beat any Iron into an edge
Cuchenppo = Woman
Nimatewh = Man
Makique = Snot
Cuttahamunourcar = To Dig A Grave
Nepowwer = Naked
Nutsseqwacup = I Will Drink No More.