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Pompmo and the Legend of Paw Waw's Pond 'l\.7ickerson attempts in trPompmo and the Legend ofPaw Waw's .1..'1 Pond" to fuse legend to historicalfact. He fails to acknowledge the legend as it existed in the area, which he surely must have known. A historical marker at the pond (I have seen a picture of it published in 1976) which according to William Quinn, caretaker ofhistorical markers in the town of Orleans, washed out in a storm read as follows: trpau Wah Pond, namedfor Pau Wah, Chiefofthe Potonamequoits who drowned herein after Chief QJ4anset refused marriage to his daughter Wild Dove. Fable saysCast a pinch of tobacco in the pond and Pau Wah gives you good fishing. " The information for the marker which was placed at the pond in the 1950s came from Albert S. Snow (deceased) who had gotten it from hisgrandfather . The town refused to spend the $500 to replace the marker, which is one way a legend can die. For a detailed account ofthe legend, see Elizabeth Reynard, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. Reynard received her information from John Kenrick of South Orleans. The name is usually spelled trKendrick." I recently salP the Kendrick home offour generations which held the Post Office at one time; across the road is the town pump ofwhich a John Kendrick IVas officially elected keeper. In briefsketch, Reynard's «The Water-Being of Pau Wah Pond" has Quansett refusing Pau Wah's request for his daughter Wild Dove. Pau Wah raided Quansett's wigwam but failed to secure the princess. In shame over his defeat, Pau Wah moved onto a pond near Namequoit to avoid the hunters' trails. Failing to make an offering to the Water Spirit, Niba-nahbeezik, Pau Wah was sent immediately to the bottom of the ice-covered pond where he lives, unfortunately, without Wild Dove and without tobacco. In order to make a trade with Pau Wah for fish, one must throlV in the pond a piece oftobacco and make the 150 Pompmo lind the Legend ofPIIW WIIW'S Pond 151 delll, tePIlU Wllh, PIIU Wllh, PIIU Wllh,give mefuh lind Igive you tllbllC.1I Possibly Nickerson gllve his IIccount of the legend beclluse he knew from historicillfllct thllt Pompmo lived to be well over seventy, thllt he WIIS mllrried , hlld children, lind WIIS not II chief. See Nickerson's Some Lower Cllpe Cod Indillns, Group II, lrJ'he Nllwsets,1I 195-203for thegeneillogy lind leglll trllnsllctions of Pompmo. Nickerson's well-indexed mllnuscript contllins many references to 1I11 of the Nlltive Americllns mentioned in this piece liS well lIS references to QUllnsett. There lire VllriOUS spellings ofPIIW WIIW. In Names of the Land: Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and the Elizabeth Islands Eugene Green lind Willillm L. SlIchse, identify the pond liS telln inlet ofPlellsllnt Btly, offPortllnimicut ROlld in Orlellns. Pompo the powwow (PIIW Wllh is lin -irregulllr spelling ofthe Algonquilln word for conjurer) hlld much IIInd in ellrly Orlellns. He IIppllrently drowned in the pond; therellfter, fuhermen would drop II quid oftobacco into the waters liS an offering to him lind SIlY, 'PIIW Waw, I give you tobac'. Tou give me some fish. 1I This indiclltes how varied the spelling clln be even in the same work; therefore, I havegrllnted Nickerson hisspelling. A version entitled "Indian Legend ofPIIW WIIW'S Pond1l WIIS published by Nickerson in the Cape Codder on 21 Februllry 1957. There is a beautiful little tidewater pond down in the northeastern corner ofSouth Orleans known today as Lockwood's Pond. It nestles in behind Namacoick1 Point, and but for the narrow Run which connects it with the ebb and flow of the waters of Little Bay and the ocean beyond, it would be entirely landlocked. Its ancient Indian name was Ottinamut, but when I was a boy, it was always spoken of by the old settlers as Paw Waw's Pond. Likewise, the whole countryside roundabout, including the little village nearby, was known as Paw Waw except when Harwich Hairleggers go under the skin of our neighbors, the Paw Waw Yallerbellies, by referring to their home place by its other colloquial title, Skunks' Misery.2Tradition has it that the pond got its name because a noted Indian paw waw or medicine man, named Pompmo, once lived by its shores and was drowned in its waters. The early records prove that there was in truth an Indian by that name who was a large land owner...

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