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A Time to Live, A Time to Die

From birth to death, the Indians of Long Island marked the passing stages of life

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

The Algonquian Indians of Long Island buried their dead with fanfare, exchanged gifts at weddings, partied at harvest time and held naming ceremonies for their children.

Although very little has been recorded by the Indians themselves about their social customs, there are accounts by observers that fill in the historical holes. When Samson Occum, a Mohegan from Connecticut, came to East Hampton to preach Christianity to the Montauketts in the 1760s, he found that old customs died hard. In one case, he described how children were not named until they had survived infancy.

``He [Occum] reported that several families often gathered together to hold a naming ceremony, which included dancing, feasting, and exchanges of gifts,'' historian John Strong writes in his book, ``The Algonquian Peoples of Long Island.''

``There were two different ways of announcing the names. Some families had each recipient of a gift stand and shout the name of the child three times; others called upon a few elders to speak the name.

``This name was only the first of several the child would have during his or her lifetime. It was a common practice to take on a new name in response to a dream or an unusual personal experience or accomplishment.''

Rites of passage were common among the Algonquians. Young people reaching their teenage years were singled out for special treatment -- sort of like a boy today having a bar mitzvah or confirmation. Boys were sent into the woods alone to hunt and endure hardships. Girls experiencing their first menstruation were sequestered in a special wigwam for several days and their hair was cut off.

Marriage appears to have been a particularly big deal among the Indians -- even though they didn't have catering halls for overpriced receptions. The father of a male child seeking to marry him off to a girl in his village presented animal gifts to the prospective bride's parents. If the parents agreed, they accepted the gifts.

``If there was an agreement,'' Strong, a professor at the Southampton Campus of Long Island University, writes, ``a great wedding feast was prepared by both sets of parents and their families for all of the friends and relatives.''

When adults married, it was much simpler. Basically, the partying was scaled back to include just the two families. But sometimes all ceremony was skipped and the man and woman chose to live together. In this case, the woman would come to the man's wigwam, and they would share a meal. Marriage was not always forever. According to Occum, divorce was commonplace.

Indian gravesites found on Long Island show that funeral rites were commonplace. In a few cases, personal belongings were included in the grave. In others, dogs were killed and placed in the grave. Strong writes of an archeologist digging near Sag Harbor who found the skeleton of a puppy in a shallow grave. In the late 1920s, a construction crew building a house near Lake Montauk found a wooden coffin that contained the remains of an adult female and a small dog. Copper pots, glass beads, and pipes were also in the grave. Strong believes that the dogs were included in graves to help guide the dead to the next life.

There were many rituals built around curing illnesses. A village herbalist had the task of administering herbal remedies and mixing plants. There were remedies for every illness. In addition, sweat lodges, which had important ritual signficance themselves, were also used to help cure the sick.

Lodges were constructed of sticks and covered with grass and clay. The clay covering turned the lodge into a virtual oven. The lodges were heated with hot stones piled in the center. As with modern-day steambaths, water was sprinkled on the hot rocks to produce steam. Often, herbs were consumed beforehand to increase sweating.

There were many rituals centered on stargazing. Western Long Island Indians ``were careful observers of the heavens because they believed that the stars were living beings,'' Strong writes. The positions of stars relative to the seasons provided critically important information for harvests. These western Long Island Indians seem to have been particularly interested in phases of the moon, too. Tribal stargazers passed word to the community as to when to hunt, fish and plant.

A mystery to historians today are the engravings found on stone tablets at several locations on Long Island. It is unclear what role, if any, carvings made in the shape of idols and engravings such as these played in Algonquian social life.

Occum said the Montauketts used idols as a means of communicating with the spirit world. Western Long Island Indians kept small wooden dolls, called nanitis, according to historical records, which were considered sacred.

Engraved tablets found by archeologists at several Long Island sites seem to have served other purposes. Most beg more questions than they answer. One, found near Glen Cove, is carved with lines and other markings on both sides. A tablet in the collection of the East Hampton Library's Long Island collection is made of slate, with notches around the edge and a cross-hatch pattern on one side and a rectangle inside a circle on the reverse side.

Strong, who has done the most work trying to uncover the meanings of these objects, says they are a mystery.

``We don't really know much about them, or how they fit into the Algonquian social order,'' he said. ``There's even a dispute about some of the engraved tablets and carvings over whether they were made by the Algonquians at all. Some of what the Indians did on Long Island, and what they believed in, is beyond our understanding today.''