The Power of Powhatan Towns
The Power of Powhatan Towns
Socializing Manitou in the Algonquian Chesapeake
This chapter proposes a Powhatan theory of power and suggests links to the archaeology and ethnohistory of towns in the lower Chesapeake. Early colonial-era sources highlight a recurring process whereby powerful outside forces, materials, and people were socialized within the Powhatan settlements known as Kings’ Houses. We suggest that a key Algonquian concept for understanding this process is manitou—the vital spiritual force manifest in dangerously potent people, animals, objects, and places. Within the Kings’ Houses of the colonial-era, Powhatan leaders harnessed manitou by orchestrating ritual, trade, and the built environment. Archaeological evidence of feasting, ditches, and palisades points toward similar practices associated with the construction of boundaries—ditches and palisades—within prominent settlements, starting in the thirteenth century AD. By transforming the objects and people that transgressed these boundaries, religious practitioners and political leaders exercised a “tactical power” grounded in Kings’ Houses and animated by manitou.
Keywords: Chesapeake, Powhatan, Algonquian, Manitou, Boundaries, Ditches, Feasting, tactical power
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