At the Nickomo feast, held in the winter, the person giving the feast, besides providing food for perhaps hundreds of people (the size of the guest list depended upon what one could afford to pay for) presented goods and money to his guests.[330] Upon receipt of the gift, the guest would call out three times an invocation for the prosperity of his host.[331]
Trade: The several groups of Indians of southeastern New England traded among themselves in pottery vessels, wooden bowls, bows, arrows, pipes, shell money, stone bowls, skins, and food products of the hunt and the fields.[332] The manufacture of some of these items appears to have been specialized according to local group. That is, the women of one locality seem to have made cooking pots, and these were traded to the women of other groups.[333] Wooden bowls seem to have been the specialty of the Wampanoags. Soapstone pipes and bowls were produced by the Narragansetts and were traded north at least to Cape Cod.[334] At a time that was probably early in the seventeenth century the Narragansetts also took over the production of wampum for the region. Craftsmen spent the summer collecting suitable shells and the winter making the beads.[335] Trade in furs among Indian groups was not highly developed prior to the arrival of Europeans. It seems to have been mainly a matter of trading for kinds of skins that were scarce or finer than those in one’s own territory.[336] Food was probably traded according to need. It was also traded on the basis of geographical location, coastal tribes exchanging with interior tribes.[337]
The arrival of Europeans in the New World provided a great trade stimulus. The major trading interest between Indians and Europeans was the fur trade. Here coastal dwelling Indian groups such as the Wampanoags took the advantage. Being first to meet the Europeans, they quickly established themselves as go-betweens in the trade, and besides doing trapping of their own, they traded for the furs of inland tribes, which they then traded to the Europeans for a profit.[338] The fur trade caused increased emphasis upon hunting and trapping. Since it was more profitable to trade skins than to wear them, the fur trade was a force that encouraged Indians to adopt European textiles and dress.
The fur trade also was responsible for the introduction of wampum into Wampanoag culture. Wampum, used as money, was a trait belonging to Indian groups to the south. Purple wampum may have first originated on Long Island.[339] When the Dutch settled New Netherland, they found it a convenient medium of exchange and adopted it. The regular use and production of wampum found its way north to the Narragansetts, but it did not become popular with the Wampanoags until after 1627, the year in which the Dutch first brought wampum to Plymouth and suggested its virtues to the English settlers there.[340] Once its value was appreciated, Indians of the Plymouth area began to make it also.[341] Within the next twenty years, wampum as ornament and money became ingrained in Wampanoag culture.
Purple wampum was double the value of white. Wampum was reckoned in value by count, 360 white beads equalling a fathom, which was worth five shillings. This number of beads might exceed or fall short of a fathom in linear measure, but the number of beads rather than actual length was the important criterion.[342] The value of wampum, however, was based on the market in furs.[343] After 1648 this market dropped, and after that date a 5-shilling “fathom” of wampum had to consist of 480 white beads. In the period immediately prior to King Philip’s War the use of wampum as currency declined.[344]
Not all trade was in terms of skins and wampum. These were basic but not the exclusive goods in circulation. Guns and alcohol were popular items, introduced onto the market chiefly by the French—much to the distress of the English colonists and missionaries. Corn was also much involved in New England commerce.[345] Settlers traded corn with the Indians, according to the needs of each in a particular year. The Pilgrims at Plymouth traded corn to Indians in Maine for furs, although this pattern came to be replaced by an exchange of furs for wampum.[346]
LABOR
The basic division of labor was between the sexes. Certain tasks were those of women; certain others were those of men—neither did the work of the other. Apparently there were also individual craft specialty avocations, in terms of tribe or local group. That is, besides doing all the tasks that were necessary every day to produce food, clothing, and shelter, some people also made bowls, pottery, pipes, etc. It is not known, however, which people (i.e. a few individuals or almost everyone) within the group made these things.
The tasks of women centered about the home and fields. Theirs was the job of building the house. They set up the poles, made the mats to cover them, and fastened on the covering. When the family moved they took down the mats and carried them on their backs to the next homesite, where they were put onto the family dwelling in that place.[347] The woman did all the tending of the crops—she planted them, weeded them, saw that they were guarded from birds, harvested them, processed them, and stored them. She also made the various containers in which they were stored. Whichever of these products were to be carried to their next camping spot she also carried.[348]
The various collecting activities were the woman’s job—gathering shellfish for food and to bait her husband’s line, collecting roots, berries, and seeds, and also gathering the various raw materials needed for making bags and baskets.[349] When fish or game was captured by the man of the house he left the kill where it had fallen and sent his wife to fetch it in. Having collected the game, the woman skinned it, prepared the meat and dressed the hide, which she might then make into clothing or some household article.[350] Besides these things women had the job of motherhood. Along with the household goods, the baby rode on his mother’s back when the family moved.[351] Women were valued as highly productive members of the community. Bride-price is one institution that emphasizes their importance. The more women there were in a group, the more prosperous it was considered to be. In war, female captives were prized. A wife who wanted to leave her husband could run away to the enemy and be welcomed.[352]