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435 Early Texts in Massachusett In 2010 Jessie Little Doe (Fermino) Baird received a MacArthur Foundation award for her work on Wampanoag (Wôpanâak) language revitalization. Wampanoag offers a unique resource to Native scholars like Baird (and Helen Manning, who appears below), in that a sizable body of texts is written in the language. This is due in large part to missionaries like the Puritan John Eliot, who produced the first Native translation of the Bible, with the help of Native consultants John Sassamon and James Printer (Nipmuc, also represented in this volume). Meanwhile, Native people who were trained to read and write, ostensibly for religious purposes, used this new form of literacy for their own ends, as demonstrated in the legal documents shown here. The linguist Ives Goddard and anthropologist Kathleen Bragdon have painstakingly reproduced, translated, and annotated a wealth of these texts; what appear below are their English translations only, to give readers a sense of some of the content addressed—and the resistance expressed—in early Wampanoag writing. Petition from Gay Head Sachem Mittark, 1681 I am Muttaak, sachem of Gay Head and Nashaquitsa as far as Wanemessit.¹ Know this all people. I Muttaak and my chief men and my children and my people, these are our lands. Forever we own them, and our posterity forever shall own them. I Muttaak and we the chief men, and with our children and all our [common] people [present], have agreed that no one [shall] sell land. But if anyone larcenously sells land, you shall take [back] your land, because it is forever your possession. But if anyone does not keep this agreement, he shall fall [and] have nothing more of this land at Gay Head and Nashaquitsa at all forever. I Muttaak and we the chief men, and our posterity, [say]: And it shall be so forever. I Ummuttaak say this, and my chief men: if any of these sons of mine protects my sachemship, he shall forever be a sachem. But if [any of] my sons does not protect my sachemship and sells it, he shall fall forever. And we chief men say this, and our sachem: if any of these sons of ours protects our chieftainship, he shall forever be a chief man. But if any of our sons does not protect our 436 wampanoag chieftainship and sells it, he shall fall forever. I Umuttaag, sachem, say this and my chief men; [this is] our agreement. We say it before God. It shall be so forever. I Ummuttaak, this is my hand [X], on the date September 11, 1681. We chief men say this [and] our sachem; this is our agreement. [We say it] before God. It shall be so forever. These are our hands [X—X—X]. I John keeps am a witness and this is my hand concerning the agreement of Ummuttaak and his chief men of Gay Head and Nashaquitsa, all [and] both. I Puttukquannan am a witness. I witnessed this agreement of Ummuttaak and his chief men of Gay Head and Nashaquitsa, both. No one forever [shall] sell it; they [shall] keep it. I Puttukquannan, this is my hand [X]. I Sasauwapinnoo am a witness. I witnessed the agreement of Ummuttaak and his chief men of Gay Head and Nashaquitsa, all [and] both. I Sasauwapinnoo, my hand. Petition from Gay Head september the 5, 1749 At Gayhead the poor Indians met together, we who are the proprietors. They made a humble petition, by vote, to you, the honorable Commissioners in Boston, and also the General Court. Humbly we beseech you, we the poor Indians who are the proprietors of Gayhead: defend us much more regarding our land at Gayhead. We need what [will] be better [for us] other years that [will] come. We would plant our gardens on [the land] that the Guardians have leased out for six years, from when it was first leased out on October the 20, 1747. And we become poorer and poorer, from that time until today. No longer do we have pasturage freely where our animals can feed, except if we rent pasturage, to this day. Previously it was not so. Before this new law came we had at all times enough pasturage and also gardens. Therefore we humbly pray that there may be released to us our land that has been leased out. We say we are weary of renting more pasturage. And this year we [shall] use everything they do not lease out, and...

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