Their Grandmother
Okemesw8 means “their grandmother” in Abenaki. The letter “8” is pronounced like “aw” as in “pawn”.
Colonial records describe her as an “old squaw” and a Praying Indian. She undoubtedly called herself by another name, but for this essay I will remember her as Okemesw8, the grandmother of two boys, one an infant, the other three years old, who arrived in 1669 at Wigwam Hill in the Pawtucket village of Agawam, renamed by the settlers colonizing her homeland as Ipswich, Massachusetts.
She spoke an Algonquian language similar to the Abenaki spoken by her descendents.
She was Pawtucket. “Pawtucket” comes from the name of the falls on the Mol8demak (Merrimack) River where her people gathered in the spring to fish.
The Pawtucket moved seasonally across what today is called Essex County south and east from these falls to their hilltop planting fields and then further east to the great marsh stretching along the Bay of Agawam.
For countless generations, the Pawtucket came to harvest shellfish from the beaches and estuaries along Agawam Bay. So, they also are known as the “Agawam”.
Deborah Spears Moorehead is a member of the Pokanoket Seaconke Wampanoag Tribal Nation. Her Interpretation of the Wampanoag Woodland Creation Story Character “Granny Squannt” represents the Strawberry Moon.
Artist Proof Prints are available at Moorehead’s website.
Although Okemes8 was Pawtucket, not Wampanoag, we can picture her like Granny Squannt disappearing into the dunes at Castle Neck to evade the settlers seeking to remove her grandson.
As Pawtucket, Okemesw8 would have spoken an Algonquian dialect similar to but distinct from the language spoken at Odanak on the Alsigôntekw River in Quebec. The Abenaki words used in this essay are drawn from several sources based on the language spoken at Odanak.
Sources include Abenaki Indian Legend, Grammar and Place Names by Henry Lorene Masta, Father Aubery’s French Abenaki Dictionary translated to English by Stephen Laurent, Western Abenaki Dictionary by Gordon Day, and Abenaki Dictionary by Bowman Press.
Appropriating “okemesw8” into an English essay inevitably distorts the full meaning of this word. There is a long history of colonizers appropriating indigenous words for our own purposes. Whenever an Algonguian word is separated from its culture and linguist structure it loses much of its original meaning. Okemesw8 is no exception.
Although both “their grandmother” in English and “okemesw8” in Abenaki are possessive, they are used in very different ways. This essay revolves around two distinct forms of the possesive case. One is the ownership Daniel Epps asserts over Lyonell who he believed had been given to him. The other is the inalienable bond of kinship binding Daniel and Lyonell in reciprocal relationship with thier grandmother.
I hope to use “okemesw8” to convey this inalienable kinship between a grandmother and her grandsons. I hope to be transparent in this purpose and also recognize that as a non-native I will never adequately provide the needed context. In so far as I have strayed from my purpose, I hope that others, both native and non-native, will correct me.
The nephew of John Winthrop Jr., Daniel Epps and his wife Elizabeth lived at the base of Castle Hill in Agawam. Castle Hill is named for the wooden stockade built there looking out over the Bay of Agawam by the Pawtucket leader Masconomet.
Within six months of Okemesw8’s arrival, Daniel and Elizabeth Epps removed her older grandson and indentured the boy to work on their 320 acre farm. Okemesw8 was determined that they would not also take her younger grandson.
In the winter, Okemesw8 built a wigwam in “The Pines” near Wigwam Hill on Castle Neck (see detail below). In the summer, she moved closer to Castle Hill and may have harvested the abundant resources of the marsh at what became known as Baker’s Creek.
She would not abandon her older grandson and visited him at the Castle Hill farm when she could. To understand Okemesw8’s determination not to allow Daniel and Elizabeth Epps to remove her younger grandson, we need to take a closer look at the Winthrop family. This begins with their role in the Pequot war.
Castle Neck at the Pawtucket Village of Agawam
Castle Hill (blue) , “The Pines” (green), Wigwam Hill (red). To see details, pause the scrolling with the button in upper right.
Detail: Castle Hill (Blue), Wigwam Hill (red) and The Pines (green)