Draft Interpretive Plan Join the adventure! - Captain John Smith ...

closer to fresh arable land. Sometimes the people packed up their towns and moved them
to new locations. They also occupied temporary towns or camps during hunts.
Periodically the people set parts of the woods afire to remove undergrowth and keep the
forest open.
The Bay and the woods provided the people with food. Although the English considered
the region to be teeming with fish and animals—which certainly was true in comparison
with England—the available food supply increased and decreased with the seasons and
weather changes. In periods of drought (the English arrived in the Bay in the midst of
one such period), food had to be carefully hoarded and rationed. When the weather
cooperated, however, the people had a remarkable abundance of wild and cultivated
foods.
Regarding forest- and wetlands-dwelling animals, the bones of deer, turkeys, raccoons,
and turtles are often found at archeological sites. The people also consumed bears,
rabbits, squirrels, ducks, geese, and a wide variety of other animals and birds. Plants,
however, furnished a large proportion of the diet. For several hundred years before 1608,
the Native people cultivated crops in garden plots: sunflowers, squash, beans, Jerusalem
artichokes, melons, and maize. For millennia before then, they had gathered wild rice,
nuts, acorns, berries, fruits, tubers, and succulents. Specific plant-food types varied with
the location.
For some thousands of years as well, the people consumed fish, shellfish, animals, and
birds. The archeological record provides evidence of Native diets. A site excavated near
the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at Lynnhaven Bay contained remnants of thirty-one
species of fish, including sea trout, croaker, spot, menhaden, white perch, sharks, skates,
burrfish, needlefish, stargazer, longnosed gar, golden shiner, white catfish, yellow
bullhead, and pumpkinseed. Shellfish included blue crabs, three species of clams, ribbed
mussels, marsh periwinkle, and oysters. Another site on the James River contained a
huge five-foot thick deposit of mussel shells. Sturgeon and catfish remains were also
found there. Enormous oyster middens are often found in the Chesapeake region.
Cultivation, gathering, and hunting duties were divided between women and men.
Women took care of garden plots and the gathering of wild plants, nuts, and the like.
Men hunted and fished. The women also prepared the food regardless of its source.
As in matters related to food, matters of governance and work were generally divided
between men and women, whose worlds tended to be parallel but separate. Exceptions
were made, but men were usually the warriors, hunters, religious leaders, and chiefs and
subchiefs. Women not only cultivated and prepared food, but also gathered firewood and
made clothing, twine, baskets, and other household implements. The construction of
houses apparently was shared, although when the people moved from one site to another,
the women did most of the carrying while the men hunted. Men seem to have done some
of the heavy work, however, such as clearing fields for gardens.
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