The Pamunkey Indian Museum informs visitors about the culture and heritage of the Pamunkey Indians. The museum is located on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation in King William County, Virginia and showcases artifacts that date back to the ice age. The museum also contains extensive exhibits that illustrate the interaction between the English settlers at Jamestown and the Powhatan nation which included the Pamunkey Indian tribe. These exhibits present both the English and Native American perspectives on the groups’ interaction. For those who know little about Native American life in Virginia, the museum is an excellent starting point for a journey to understanding of the oldest Native American Indian reservation in the United States and the tribe that inhabits its lands.

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Pamunkey Pride

 

Joyce Krigsvold is keeping history and tradition alive on the Pamunkey Indian Museum in King Wililam County, Virginia.

 

Vistors to the Pamunkey Indian Reservation will notice the serenity that surrounds them. Sun-kissed trees and soybean crops line its main roads. Few automobiles are on the roads and birds chirp incessantly. Carved signs point the way to the reservation’s museum and pay tribute to Pocahontas and Chief Powhatan.        

Joyce Krigsvold, a Pamunkey Indian, resides on the tribe’s reservation and helps to run the Pamunkey Indian Museum. Her lineage and knowledge of the Pamunkey pottery tradition reflect the history of the reservation. She is a descendent of tribal leaders and works to keep the traditons and culture of the Pamunkey tribe alive. “My mom was a Cook and my dad was a Bradby,” Krigsvold explained. Her grandfather George Major Cook was Chief of the Pamunkey from 1898 to 1932 and her uncle Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook from 1942 to 1984.

“We welcome visitors. And we just love to have people come and tell our story,” said Krigsvold, a descendent of tribal leaders who embodies the pride and tradition of the Pamunkey tribe.

“When I was a kid I hated it, you know, there was nothing to do. But now I really enjoy living here,” Joyce Krigsvold said about the peacefulness of the reservation, located in King William County, Virginia.

Virginia’s Pamunkey tribe traces its roots beyond the beginnings of the Jamestown settlement. Kim Scholpp of the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation observed that the Pamunkey may very well have been the first to come into contact with the English explorers.

“The tribes in the Powhatan Confederacy were the first tribes the colonial settlers came into contact with when they landed at Virginia,” said Scholpp.

According to Warren Billings, an expert on early American history and professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans, “There were many conflicts between the colonists and the tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy, including the Pamunkey tribe." Despite these conflicts, history attributes the colonists’ successful establishment of Jamestown to the benevolence of Chief Powhatan and his daughter, Pocahontas. Karenne Wood, the director of the Virginia Indian Heritage Program verified that the land owned occupied is part of the original land.

“1200 acres of the original reservation that are still owned by the tribe today were considerably larger when land was originally allotted to the tribe by a 1646 treaty with the King of England,” Wood noted.

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Three generations of Pamunkey women describe the importance of recognizing and respecting Virginia's Native American history and the value of their tribal lands and traditions. The Pamunkey, like all Native Americans, have a great regard for the natural environment and believe that land belongs to no one. Established in 1646, the Pamunkey Indian Reservation now encompasses of 1200 acres in and around King William County, Virginia, including the Pamunkey River. Recognized by the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission as an archaeological district since 1966, the reservation has been continuously inhabited by the Pamunkey Indians since the ice age. In addition to its Shad fish hatchery, Powhatan’s burial site, a number of private residences, and farmland, the reservation is also home to protected lands and bird sanctuaries.

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Today the reservation is still home to tribal descendents, and has many notable sites worth visiting such as the Indian Museum, Shad Fish Hatchery, and the burial site of Chief Powhatan.

On the reservation, Krigsvold resides on the reservation on land that was once her mother’s and works in the Indian Museum. She is also involved with helping the tribe establish its genealogical history which will aid in its fight for federal recognition. In addition, she also practices the tribe’s tradition of pottery-making, just as her mother did years ago.

Just behind the Indian Museum is a small three-room, one-story house with white clapboard siding resting on cinderblocks.  The small house was built in 1932 as a pottery school. The pottery tradition is as old as the tribe. The school led to the establishment of a tribal pottery guild.
The guild—eight women, trained in the tradition of Pamunkey pottery-making—used the house to craft pottery that the tribe sold to visitors to make money during the depression. One of the members of the guild was Krigsvold’s mother, Dora Cook Bradby.

Inside the house, Krigsvold pointed out the room where the eight members of the tribe’s pottery guild once worked daily. The room is adorned with wall-to-wall shelves covered with handmade moulds and pottery, and the original four clay-stained tables and aged wooden chairs used by eight members of the guild. She even pointed to the table and chair where her mother made moulds and pottery. The original moulds created by the guild line the walls in the back room of the house. 

“They started doing the mould pieces probably in the 30’s, because they realized they could sell that cheaper and that they could make more of it quickly and they needed the money back then so they still made the blackware, but this was a better way to get some money quicker,,” said Krigsvold.

Today, there is no pottery guild left in the reservation. But female members of the Pamunkey tribe are keeping the tradition alive. While Debora Littlewing Moore and her mother, Master Powhatan Potter Gentle Rain Moore have presented pottery demonstrations at local Native American events and at the National Museum of the American Indian, Krigsvold said that she is only one of two women who make pottery on the reservation. As she continues the craft of pottery-making on the reservation, modern life offers little time to utilize the reservation’s Pottery School.  

“Now we have so much other stuff going on, we can’t just sit here and make pottery. So we make it when we get a chance and at home. It’s easier,” she added

As she explained the history of her tribe and family, Krigsvold beamed with pride.

“It’s just a great source of pride to know that we’ve been here for all these many years and we’re still here and we’re still doing our culture and our pottery the same way. And you can’t take that away from us,” she said. “Hopefully I can continue to do it as long as my mom did,” she said.

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Facts about Virginia's Native American Population

 

There are six tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia. These tribes are the: Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Monacan, Nansemond, Rappahannock and Upper Mattaponi Indian Nations. Though these tribes are recognized by the Commonwealth none of them are recognized by the U.S government.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2007 table “Estimates of the Population by Race and Hispanic Origin for the United States: July 2007”, released May 1, 2008, out of a population of 7,712,091 total residents, 27,339 are classified as American Native or Alaska Native in the Commonwealth.  With the exception of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islanders in the state, which number 6, 263, this illustrates the smallness of the Native American populations in the Commonwealth.

While they are recognized by the Commonwealth, the CIED is one of the six Virginia tribes seeking congressional federal recognition. This recognition is important for inherent human and economic reasons.  The website http://virginiaindians.homestead.com/home.html is the official site of Virginia Indian Tribal Alliance for Life or VITAL. 

According the VITAL website, the organization “fosters a better understanding between people through the publication and distribution of literature written by leading scholars of Virginia Indian history as well as tribal historians.” The website also highlights the reasons why federal recognition is important to the six sovereign Virginia tribes despite the fact that hundreds of tribes in America have obtained federal recognition, but according to VITAL, the lack of recognition of Virginia Tribes stems from early 20th century “paper genocide” at the hands of Walter Plecker, then state registrar who eliminated the category Indian from birth and marriage certificates which in turn denied Virginia tribes of their birthright and “possession of their lands, territories, and resources” and their basic human rights and freedom.

VITAL reports that in addition to legitimizing the contribution of the Virginia tribes to the history of the Commonwealth and the nation, federal recognition has the additional benefits of a number of economic improvements for the tribes including: affordable housing and educational incentives for those who cannot afford it as well as development of the areas surrounding their territories which could greatly improve the Tribes’ abilities to become self-sustaining entities. The group was seeking to have obtained federal recognition by the 400 anniversary of Virginia, but was unable to do so. The VITAL website also links to the HR bill and provides additional links to Native American news.

The website, viginiaindians.pwnet is a portal to each of the Virginia tribes. The site lists a number of Native American activities the Virginia tribes participate in each year. The largest event in which the tribe participates is the Virginia Pow Wow which is held each year in May. For Native Americans, the event is a sacred time to sing and dance create and renew friendships. The word Pow wow comes from the Algonquin Pau Wau which tribal leaders used to refer to medicine men and spiritual leaders. In a pow wow, the dance circle is blessed before the dance begins and is considered sacred throughout the duration of the dance. It is improper to exhibit adverse behavior such as drinking, smoking, using profanity, or exhibiting boisterous behavior. It is also improper for spectators to enter or walk across the dance circle and participants in the dance must enter walk or dance in a clockwise direction within the circle and exit the dance circle at the same point to show respect for the sacredness of the ceremony and the dance circle.

Though events are held throughout the year for various tribes, according to a number of sites, most Virginia tribal pow wows occur between May and June.

 

(Reported in July 2008)