Wutamo's Song, A Novel of the Narragansett: Wutamo's Song, #1

By T.R. Rankin

Wutamo's Song is the fictional memoir of a Native American – Wutamoquok, Elder and Keenomp, or Valiant one, of the Narragansett People – who lived during the turbulent years of the 17th century. Narrated by Wutamo himself on the eve of King Phillip's War, it chronicles his life beginning with his coming of age in 1614, and that of his friend, Miantonomi, who rose to become chief sachem of the tribe and was one of the key historical figures of that era. Wutamo's Song tells of the Narragansett People and of the long struggle with European culture and civilization that utterly changed their way of life and nearly destroyed them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gaia House Books
• Release date: Oct 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201913618

T.R. Rankin

T.R. Rankin lives and writes in East Greenwich, Rhode Island

Book preview

Fall 1675

Iam Wutamoquok, called Wutamo, Keenomp and Elder of the Narragansett, People of the Small Point. Seventy-five winters have I walked this land. Now, in the weakness of my age, I live in the lodge of my daughter's daughter, in the winter fortress of our people, deep in the swamps of Quawauehunk, the Great Swamp. There is war across the land, spawned by Metacomet of the Mount—he who the English call Philip—and we fear its flames will engulf us here in our refuge.

It is but a single moon past taquontikeeswush, the harvest month, yet already the ice grows thick upon the waters of the swamp. The naked trees scratch at the sky and the snow blows white across the black coals of our council fire. It drifts along the walls of the stockade and piles against the side of our wetu. The cold has settled deep into my bones and even without this war, I do not believe I will see the spring.

Only one other winter can I remember when the cold came so quickly and settled so deep. That was the year the English trader Williams came and settled his town of Providence. I was in the full strength of my manhood then, and the cold was no more to me than to the hónckock, the great geese that fly down from the north. I spent much time with Williams over the years, both in his town and at his trading lodge in Cocumscussoc, learning his tongue, and teaching him the language of the People. It was he who taught me this cipher and how to form letters with the quill. It was I who taught him how to make the ink.

Now I rise early to tend the fire—a job for women or the infirm—and am glad my years allow me this luxury of sitting the day beside it. I watch the smoke rise up through the smoke-hole and think long of those distant years and how quickly they, too, have drifted away. My great-grandson asks me often of those olden days, the other children, too. They want to know how different it was then, before the white man came. And how can I tell them? Then was as it always was. Now it is that is different.

This is the fourteenth winter for my great-grandson. He has had his dream ceremony, and but for the war and the harshness of the weather, would be out in the woods now, wintering over to become a man and a warrior. He is much taken with becoming a warrior. All the young men are. They talk of nothing but war all the day and boast how brave they will be, of how many English they will kill. They resent being cooped up here in this swamp, hiding, they say, like women. Some have already gone off to join Philip in the north. Others call for the English to come and attack us here.

But I have seen the English way of war. Forty years ago, before these young men and even some of their fathers were born, I saw the English burn the Pequots inside their stockade. I saw the women and children clubbed to the ground and hacked with the English long knives. I saw the English slice the hair and scalps from the dead, saw them laughing and dancing in the blood. I do not wish their war to come here.

But I think it will and I fear for the People. It is said the English are sending an army because our sachem Canonchet will not give over the Wampanoag women who have taken refuge among us. Fourteen heads of Wampanoag men have we already sent to the Englishman Smith to appease their anger, but it is not enough. They would have the heads of the women and children, too. But this, Canonchet has refused. He says we must give no more, not another Wampanoag, nor the paring of a Wampanoag’s nail. They are the guests of our hearths now and are sacred. But if the English come, we will pay with our blood.

Like the children I wonder how we came to this, we who tried for so long to live in peace with the English. Canonicus, the great sachem of my youth, said we must not anger the English, that their magic was too great. Miantonomi, his nephew, co-sachem, and the friend of my youth, also saw the danger. He tried to unite the tribes, warned we would all fall if we stood alone. But he fell by Uncas’ hand, to a coward's hatchet swung from behind. Now Metacomet has burned the English town of Taunton and the fire spreads across the land.

I am too old to fight now, though if they come, I will. I watch the snow from the lodge door, poke the coals of the fire, and scratch out these words. I think it would be easier for fish to walk upon the land or a man to live under the water than for these English and the People to live in peace. We are too different. Neither can follow the other's path and view it with fear. But it is not for me, here, to try and explain the Way of the English—they have their own book and explain much of themselves. I can only tell of our Way, of what I have seen and of how it has been for me.

Chapter 1

May 1614

Iremember the cry of a wheeling gull when first I saw them. I was at Potowomet, on the shore to the north of where the Maskerchaug River meets the bay at Mascachuset Point. It was the beginning of my 14th summer, and I was camping out alone for the first time, preparing for the winter ordeal that would make me a warrior and a man. It’s strange how now, in my dotage, when all my other strengths have fled and I huddle close beside this fire, how these images of so long ago come so clear to me. In a way, they seem more real even than this gnarled boney hand that holds the quill.

I had left the village very early that morning when the mist was still drifting over the cove. I was paddling my father’s new dugout, loaded down with supplies forced on me by my mother. During my real ordeal, of course, I would be able to take none of that. Then I would only be allowed to carry a few weapons and tools, and only things I had made myself. But this was not my ordeal, my mother had pointed out, and since it was to be my first time away from home, why make things more difficult? My father had only winked, and later said just because I took all this tackle didn’t mean I had to use it. So why make my mother worry?

Thus I paddled east in the dawn, along the south shore of the cove from our village by the stream of the Tuscatucket, out past Long Point and Potowomet rocks, then south around the Neck and past Mascachuset Point to the salt marsh where the waters of the Maskerchaug empty into Narragansett Bay. Upstream about half an English mile, where the land rises from the marsh, I made my camp in an open spot at the edge of the woods, just below a large rocky outcrop. It was a good place for a camp, screened from the wind and the wide fields of Quidnesit to the south, and with many useful things at hand for the taking. It was a spot where you could live comfortably for a whole season. By water, it was perhaps four English miles from my village, so it seemed like I was far away. But in truth, I could have run straight across the neck of Potowomet and been home in a quarter of an hour.

I had brought smoldering moss in a clam shell and soon had a small fire going. I sprinkled sweet grass on it to purify the site with smoke and asked a blessing of the four directions and of all the other spirits of that place. Then I got to work, hauling my supplies up from the canoe, cutting saplings for a small lodge and a cooking tripod. The work was hard for in those days we had no English iron and I had to chop with only a stone axe. But it was good. The sun was bright and the new leaves were rustling in the trees. All around, the birds were chattering about the fine day and as I warmed to my work I felt a great surge of pride. Here I was, a warrior, out on my own at last! It did not matter that the mats I laid over my wetu frame had been woven by my mother, or that the skins I spread for my bed had been scraped and cured by her and my sister, or even that the pot I hung over the fire had also been fashioned by her hands. I was fourteen, on the very cusp of manhood, and the whole world was a path before my feet.

But my elation did not last very long. My morning’s labor had worked up a considerable hunger, and as I heated a hodge-podge chowder of corn meal, cattail shoots (just the white, inner core) and ground nuts, I thought how good a few roasted quahogs would taste with it. Carefully, I spread the fire out from under the pot with a stick so it wouldn’t burn, then ran down to the beach. And there, my new manly pride got its first blow: my father’s new canoe was gone.

I had forgotten the tide and had not pulled it high enough onto the bank! In a panic I leapt onto a nearby rock and searched out over the waters of the river. There! Out in the center of the stream, I saw it drifting out into the bay where the morning breeze was just flicking up whitecaps. It was already about a half-mile off, and the water still very cold, but I didn’t hesitate. I leapt in and swam for all I was worth. My father had put two solid weeks of work into that boat, carefully burning and hacking it out of a solid trunk, and I would have been shamed before the entire clan to have lost it so.

When I caught it, I didn’t dare try to climb in for fear of upsetting it, but pushed it ahead of me and kicked it to the sandy beach at Mascachuset point, just east of the marsh. When I could stand, I felt around the sandy bottom with my toes and soon fetched up five or six large quahogs about the size of my hand and tossed them in the boat. The big ones are best for roasting.

I pushed the canoe up into shallow water and was just about to climb in when the cry of a gull caught my attention. Turning, I watched it soar away on the wind to the south. And there, out in the distance of the foam-flecked bay, I saw a thing I will not forget if I live for a hundred summers.

It was a ship, sailing up the bay with the wind billowing in its sails. I had never seen its like before, and while I have learned much of ships and sailing and other things since, then I did not know what it was. In fact, so strange and alien was the sight that I did not even know what to think it was. My first thought was that a small cloud had fallen from the sky and was drifting up the bay. But then, as I looked closer, I could see there was something below the cloud, something solid and dark—the hull—that looked like an island. And then, the cloud was not cloud-like at all, but was composed of several curved and sharply defined somethings—the sails. Instinctively, I squatted down behind my canoe and peered over the gunwale as this strange thing came surging up the bay. My hunger was forgotten.

It came fast on the wind, growing larger and clearer by the minute until I could see it was some sort of huge canoe with tall trees with branches growing in it. But of what tree you could carve such a canoe, I had no idea. I could begin to see the figures of men on it, too, so tiny in comparison they might have been squirrels scampering about the branches of a mighty oak. And the white clouds, were they skins covering some huge wigwam? As it neared and I could see more of its profile, I saw the skins were hanging from the branches, that they were tied at their corners and billowing in the wind.

The ship moved quickly and as it pulled abreast of my position, I could see foam gushing up around the bow as it breasted a wave. It was about a mile offshore and I was surprised that it seemed to be heading directly for Round Rock. It was difficult to judge from my angle, but I could see the turbulence where the waves washed over the rock, and it was very close. Round Rock sticks up all by itself out there in deep water, like an old tooth. It was said of old that the giant Wetucks put it there to sit on when he fished. I had fished there many times myself, with my father, and at low tide, you can climb up on the rock and walk around on it. But at high tide, there is no trace.

Now, on the flood, the waves swirled and seethed around it, spitting up bits of foam, and this great canoe was almost on top of it. Yet none of the men seemed to notice.

Then someone did. At the bow, I saw a figure suddenly begin jumping up and down, and waving his arms. Back aft, a group of men began pulling at the tiller and the ship started to turn. But they were too late, and the ship reared up as it struck the rock, like a great stag that had taken an arrow in his breast.

The ship quickly sheared off and slewed around so its stern was towards me, and all the sails began to flap wildly. I could hear the sound like distant thunder. Men erupted from all over the ship, like ants when their hill is disturbed, and clambered up the rigging to take in sail, pulling, waving, shouting. I could hear their voices now, too, strange and unintelligible over the familiar water. In a few moments, the ship began moving again and bore off the wind, starting up the bay. But then it kept turning and headed in towards shore—directly for my little section of sandy beach!

My heart suddenly pounded with fear, and though I was hidden behind the canoe, I thought surely they would see me. Keeping low with the canoe between myself and the ship, I quickly began working my way back along the shore towards the marsh and the safety of the river. But I couldn’t take my eyes off the great ship. A spout of water started gushing from its side as they manned the pumps, and another group of men worked frantically at the bows, wrestling with one of the huge sails. They were pushing it down over the bow, trying to cover the leak by dragging it this way and that with lines. Others were still aloft, hauling up the rest of the sails, gathering them in and tying them to the yards, till there was only one small one left. Another man kept throwing out a lead line, hauling it back in and yelling out the depths over his shoulder.

As I scuttled along, hoping they were too busy to notice one small log floating quickly upstream, the ship loomed larger and larger and the yelling of the man with the lead grew louder, sounding like a chant or a prayer. Then with a huge jolt, the ship grounded in the shallows and the men in the bows were nearly hurled headlong into the bay.

I slipped around the mud embankment at the southern edge of the marsh and hid among the reeds to watch—making sure the canoe was well secured this time. With their ship aground, the activity aboard became even more frenzied. They lowered two smaller boats and a half-dozen men climbed down into each. For the first time, I noticed how strangely they were dressed and how many had thick beards covering their faces. And they paddled backwards! They pulled the boats to the bow of the ship where others lowered an anchor—I thought at first it must be some kind of gigantic fishhook—and laid it across the gunwales of both boats. Then, trailing a line from the ship, they pulled as close inshore as I had been and wrestled the thing overboard—where it nearly upset one of the boats—and sank with a splash.

They went back aboard, and in a few moments, more chanting began and the line to the anchor began to slowly tighten until it came up out of the water and stretched straight as an arrow back to the ship. Now some of the men climbed back into their boats while others used lines from the yards to swing up large casks and lower them into the boats. At first, I thought these were great logs, but when they got the first load ashore and began rolling them up the beach, I realized they must be wooden containers.

This work went on for a long time, and my stomach kept reminding me of my chowder pot, until finally, with several backward glances, I slipped away and paddled hurriedly upstream.

My fire had died away to a few coals and the chowder had boiled down to a paste in the bottom of the pot. I blew on the coals till the fire blazed again, set the quahogs around the inside of the fire pit to roast, then settled back with the pot to scoop out my chowder paste with greedy fingers.

But I could not keep my mind off the incredible scene I had just witnessed. Who were these people? Were they even people at all, who could make a canoe as big as an island? Were they Manitou, spirits of some kind? We had heard stories that once, in the youth of my grandfather’s grandfather, white gods had come to the People from over the water. They, too, had a huge canoe it was said. But these people were not white, though some wore long white shirts.

When the quahogs began to roast open, I pulled them from the fire with a pair of sticks, then picked them up with one of my mother’s old deerskin hot pads and pried open the shells with my flint knife to scoop out the steaming meat. What I should do, I thought, was alert the village. I couldn’t paddle back around the point without being seen, of course, but it was only a couple miles by land around Chepiwanoxet cove. But what if they were preparing to attack? It looked like they were only trying to repair their ship, but who knew what else such beings might be up to? It would be better, I thought, to scout them some more. That’s what a real warrior would do! That way, I could warn the village if there was any danger. I was very young then.

My mind made up, I grabbed the last of the quahogs and slipped the thin blade of my knife into the shell. But in my sudden determination, I twisted just a bit too hard and the flint blade snapped in my hand.

Chapter 2

We had burned off the underbrush on Potowomet Neck just the year before to keep the woods open for hunting, so it was a simple matter for me to slip back around the northern side of the marsh. Of course, I did it in my best warrior style, darting among the great oaks and chestnuts like a wraith, not even disturbing a small herd of deer grazing quietly among the tender new shoots. As the land sloped back down towards the beach, the wood turned to fir, and over the winter’s carpet of needles, I made not a sound. Just up from the beach stood a thicket of beach plum, just come into full flower. The previous fall, I had picked fruit from that very bush with my mother. Now I nestled in among its white blossoms and watched a whole new world open before me.

The strange canoe men had been very busy while I was gone and there was now a huge pile of stores of all kinds piled on the beach: casks and sacks, huge coils of line, long bundles of poles and lumber, piles of folded skins, and implements of so many kinds of tackle I had no notion what they could be. I could even hear the incessant cackle from several crates of strange birds—they were chickens—the like of which I had never seen. And still the men unloaded, swinging nets full of gear out and down into the boats, then hauling them up the beach.

I marveled at the frenzied pace of their work which had not slackened since the ship first struck the rock. And they were so well organized about it, and so silent. If this had been my own people doing such a task, all would have joined in, certainly, but there would be much more merriment about it; singing and laughter, children and dogs climbing over everything and knocking things about. But these men were quite grim and relentless. Several, who were obviously chiefs, issued orders with harsh, guttural words, while the rest toiled like slaves.

All through the morning they worked and by the time the tide was full out, the ship appeared to be empty. Its huge hull rose up high from the shallow waters around it, and several of the men waded out and gathered around the bow to inspect the damage from the rock, a long ragged gash, its edges light against the surrounding wood, and a darker gap where two or three planks has been stove in. Other men on shore were busy lashing timbers together over the hulls of the two boats, making a platform. This they floated out to the ship and tied it to the bow and began working away at the damaged spot.

I could not clearly see what they were doing, but soon, they had pulled off long sections of planking—jagged, gouged and broken—and carried them ashore. New planks had been stretched across sawhorses there, and the damaged planks were laid carefully on top of them and several other men immediately set to work, marking and cutting replacements. Now I was truly astounded, for I could see what they were doing and see the strange, marvelous tools they used. Used to working wood with stone, I was amazed at the ease with which these strange beings shaped their planks. One man worked a long thin tool—a saw—up and down along the planks and just split them down the middle! Another pushed a long block of wood—a plane—with his hands, slicing off long curly shavings of wood. What were these people, who could master such things? Surely, I thought, they must be manitou.

All through the long afternoon and into the evening, I lay watching among the fragrant plum blossoms. When the tide once again began to turn, they all left off their tasks and began a thing that amazed me more than anything I had seen before. I have since seen any number of English ships beached and careened over to have their bottoms scraped and cleaned, but this was the first time I had ever seen a thing of such size as this ship, moved with lines and blocks.

Several men climbed to the very top of the ship’s two masts and tied rounded wooden blocks there with light lines running through them. Heavier lines were hauled up through these, then taken ashore and secured to large rocks and to another anchor, which had been dragged ashore and buried in the sand so that only its end stuck up. Other blocks were attached to these, and several lines led through them to different points on the ship. As darkness gathered, eight of the men climbed to the deck of the ship, stuck poles into the capstan and began pushing it around, its palls clacking in the still evening air. As it turned, the whole spider web of lines slowly tightened, creaking and groaning like a thing alive, and the ship gradually turned sideways to the shore and began leaning over towards it. As the deck tilted beneath them and the resistance stiffened, the clacking slowed and the men started chanting, stomping their feet and pushing with a great yell; Ho! and the capstan turned and clanked.

And so they worked into the darkness, slowly but steadily, as other men gathered wood and built several fires along the beach. As the tide rose, the tilted ship began to float and the capstan turned more easily. The men were standing on the rail now and passing the bars from one to another. Others hauled on the long lines leading ashore, and the ship slowly inched her way towards the land, till it ground against the sandy bottom once more.

I could no longer see the damaged spot from where I lay, but I could tell from the angle of the ship that it was floating with the damaged spot up, high and dry. But what a thing to see! By the time the tide was at its peak, the ship was careened down so far that the ends of the yards were nearly touching the beach and water lapped along the lower edge of the deck.

But it was also long past dark and long past the time when I should have started back to warn the village. Stiff from the long hours of hiding, I began to wriggle back out from under the plum bush when a sudden sound startled me. Then I jumped as a pile of brushwood crashed down beside me and rough hands grabbed me by the arm and hair and hauled me to my feet. It was one of the crewmen, of course, out gathering wood. To my shame, I, Wutamo, the would-be warrior, had been so engrossed I had not even heard him coming along behind me!

I fought hard, though, as hard as I could; kicking, punching, twisting, biting. But the man just laughed. Though of a height with me, he was twice as broad and very powerful, with long muscular arms as big around as my legs. He held me at arm’s length and watched my struggles with a bemused sloppy grin, like a boy who has just caught a rabbit. Then he slapped me, hard, and I stopped struggling. There was no point. I just stood there, glaring at him, his stench stinging my nostrils.

Several other men rushed up, their voices harsh and unintelligible. They were neither English nor Dutch, I know now. Possibly they were French, but I am not sure, it is so many years since. One of the chiefs pushed his way through, the men stepping aside as they saw him. He was a