Description
The Mattaponi tribe is one of only two Virginia Indian tribes in the Commonwealth of Virginia that owns reservation land, which it has held since the colonial era. The larger Mattaponi Indian Tribe lives in King William County on the reservation, which stretches along the borders of the Mattaponi River, near West Point, Virginia. The Mattaponi were one of six tribes inherited by Chief Powhatan in the late 16th century. The paramount chiefdom of the Powhatan numbered more than 30 tribes by the time the English arrived and settled Jamestown in 1607. According to archaeologists, indigenous peoples of successive cultures have been living in the area now called Virginia for as long as 15,000 years. The historic tribes are believed to have formed in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Language
The tribe spoke an Algonquian language, like other members of the Powhatan Chiefdom.
Culture
For centuries, the Mattaponi River provided the tribe with food. Shad, catfish, rockfish and more from the river all make up a large part of the traditional Mattaponi diet. In keeping with traditional Powhatan beliefs, the tribe also continues to live in harmony with nature, something that while increasingly more difficult in modern times, is something the tribe still strives to adhere to. The Virginia tribes had a diet that consisted mainly of the three sisters (beans, corn, and squash), other vegetables, and fish and shellfish. The Powhatan tribe lived next to the ocean and between the rivers, so seafood was in abundance.