MASHPEE——
Where the Wampanoag
Indian Tongue is Still
Chanted
Mrs. Dorcas Gardner, of Wampanoag Indian descent, sits in a low-ceiling little room mellowed from many years of simple living, and she speaks with the wisdom of her 74 years.
“Why? I come up against the word Why so often I have to let it go by. The Lord knows best. It should be a better world after this war. When you go to the lowest, there must be an uplift somehow. We’ve seen so much of the bad we’re bound to have some good come out of it.”
Mashpee (originally Massapee) is steeped in Indian lore. Here is Cape Cod’s smallest town. It has a population of 405. George Perlot proudly points to the town’s remarkable service record.
From the tent days Camp Edwards has had close ties with little Mashpee. Indeed, 90 per cent of its airport is on Mashpee land. But this historic settlement has always had more than a local reputation, as far back as 1658 when Richard Bourne began his evangelistic work among the Indians. Mashpee election returns are watched for and featured in the city newspapers, because they are the first to be announced in every State or Federal polling.
OLDEST CAPE COD CHURCH
The Indian Church, oldest house of worship on Cape Cod, is a rare landmark; likewise the Indian burial ground, whose oldest gravestone marks the resting place of Chief Popmonnett, who died in 1770 at the age of 51. The fame of historic Hotel Attaquin, a whaling skipper’s enterprise, is such that someone, in 1910, filched the register which bore the signatures of Daniel Webster, Joseph Jefferson, Charles Dana Gibson, Grover Cleveland, John Drew and Finley Peter Dunne.
Two men survive in Mashpee who still speak the Wampanoag tongue—Ambrose Pells and William James. One or the other intones the primitive language over the grave when a Mashpee resident of Indian descent is given to the earth.
In 1711, the Rev. Daniel Williams of London left a fund in charge of Harvard University for the religious education of Indians. Mashpee became the beneficiary of this largesse. Richard Bourne taught the Indians here to govern themselves; they were authorized to hold their own courts, try criminals and pass judgment. Further, Bourne caused a law to be invoked whereby “No land could be bought by or sold to any white person without the consent of all the Indians, not even with the consent of the General Court.”
A Provincetown preacher, one Mr. Stone, appeared before the Mashpees long ago and, in his sermon, laid particular stress on the evils of alcohol. One of the Indians was asked how he liked the sermon. He answered:
“Mr. Stone is one very good preacher, but he preach too much about rum. Indian think nothing about it; but when he tells how Indian love rum, and how much they drink, then I think how good it is, and think no more ’bout the sermon, my mouth waters all the time so much for rum.”
ANCIENT RITES RE-ENACTED
Another in the line of preachers who occupied the Indian Church pulpit was Rev. Phineas Fish of Sandwich. He annoyed his early American parishioners, because, while accepting a salary, he held church for the whites and discouraged attendance by the Indians. At a meeting of the elders some strong sentiments were expressed and ultimately Mr. Fish was forcibly ejected, after which “the lock on the door of the chapel was changed.”
Mrs. Gardner many years ago originated the Richard Bourne Day ceremony, in celebration of the ordination of the pioneer missionary. In August of each year the colorful pageantry of braves in their great feather head-dresses, their squaws with beaded buckskins, tom-toms, tepees and even papooses was witnessed at the Indian Church. The Indians came from Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and other parts. Their ancient rites were re-enacted and they exchanged reminiscenses of their family lines, while large crowds of white visitors looked on and let their imaginations roll backward. The war came and the curtain was drawn—for the duration, at least—on this picturesque ceremony at the 257-year-old Indian Church in Mashpee.