Manahoac

According to William W. Tooker, the name Manahoac is Algonquian for "they are very merry", but anthropologist John R. Swanton considered this dubious. ==History==

After thousands of years of different Indigenous cultures in present-day Virginia, the Manahoac and other Piedmont tribes developed from the precontact Woodland cultures. Historically the Siouan-speaking tribes occupied more of the Piedmont area, and the Algonquian-speaking tribes inhabited the lowlands and Tidewater. 17th century The Manahoac were a confederacy of smaller bands. Smith also noted that they were at war with the Powhatan and Haudenosaunee 18th century In 1714, Lt. Governor of Virginia Alexander Spotswood recorded that the Stegaraki subtribe of the Manahoac was present at Fort Christanna in Brunswick County. The fort was created by Spotswood and sponsored by the College of William and Mary to convert natives to Christianity and teach them the English language. The other known Siouan-speaking tribes of Virginia were all represented by members at Fort Christanna. The anthropologist John Swanton believed that a group at Fort Christanna, called the Mepontsky, were perhaps the Ontponea subtribe of the Manahoac. The last mention of the Ontponea in historical records was in 1723. Scholars believe they joined with the Tutelo and Saponi and became absorbed into their tribes. In 1753, these two tribes were formally adopted in New York by their former enemies, the Iroquois, specifically the Cayuga nation. In 1870, there was a report of Nikonha (Tutelo, c. 1765–1871), a "merry old man named Mosquito" living in Canada, who claimed to be "the last of the Manahoac" and the legal owner of much of northern Virginia. He still remembered how to speak the Tutelo language. ==Culture==

Like the other Siouan-speaking tribes of Virginia's Piedmont region (i.e., the Monacan, Tutelo, and Saponi), the Manahoac people lived in various independent villages. These tribes traded, intermarried, and shared cultural celebrations. Manahoac villages were usually along the upper Rappahannock River where the soil was most fertile. They practiced a mixture of hunting and gathering as well as farming. Along the upper James River, where the closely related Monacan tribe was located, archeologists have found remnants of corn and squash in cooking pits. Also found along the James are the outlines of three oval houses at a site outside the town of Wingina in Nelson County, Virginia. Given the close relations of the Monacan and the Manahoac, scholars believe these aspects of their cultures were similar or identical. Many stone tools have been unearthed in areas which the Manahoac inhabited. They are usually made of the milky quartz common in the region. Their pottery was tempered with quartz and sand; it often featured fabric, net, or cord motifs as decoration. The Stegarake were the last remaining tribe of the Manahoac Confederacy, being last recorded in 1728; • Tegninateo, who were located in Culpeper County at the head of the Rappahannock; and the • Whonkentia, who were present in Fauquier County near the head of the Rappahannock Colonists recorded the name of one village: Mahaskahod; it was most likely located near modern Fredericksburg. ==Language==

The language of the Manahoac is not known, although John Smith stated that they spoke a language different from that of the Monacan. Anthropologist James Mooney in 1894 suggested that the Manahoac spoke a Siouan language, based on his speculation that the town called Monasickapanough was related to Saponi. He also claimed that the town Monahassanugh was the same as the name Nahyssan, Hanohaskie (a variant spelling of a Saponi town), and Yesaⁿ (Yesaⁿ is the autonym of the Tutelo). His argument was based on the assumption that the initial syllable Mo-, Ma- was supposedly a Virginia Siouan morpheme meaning, "place, earth, country". More recently, Ives Goddard has pointed to problems with Mooney's claimed evidence and argued that it is more probable that these town names are from the Virginia Algonquian language, which was the language of John Smith's guides. Additionally one town appears to be from Algonquian pidgin. Because John Lederer stated that two of the tribes he listed spoke the same language, Mooney assumed Lederer's Managog was a misspelled Monahoac, and that Monahoac and Saponi must be the two tribes with a common language. The common language may, in fact, be Virginia Siouan, which was used as a lingua franca spoken by both Siouan and Iroquoian peoples. Thus, Mooney's interpretation is not supported by the primary sources. The Manahoac likely spoke multiple languages for trade reasons. == Notes ==