Description
The Monacan Indian Nation is one of eleven Native American tribes recognized since the late 20th century by the U.S. Commonwealth of Virginia. In January 2018, the United States Congress passed an act to provide federal recognition as tribes to the Monacan and five other tribes in Virginia. They had earlier been so disrupted by land loss, warfare, intermarriage, and discrimination that the main society believed they no longer were "Indians". However, the Monacans reorganized and asserted their culture. The Monacan nation was first recorded by Jamestown settlers in colonial Virginia.
Language
Their native language is a Siouan language which is extinct.
Culture
They were an agricultural people who grew the “Three Sisters” crops of corn, beans and squash, and they had domesticated a wide variety of other foods, including sunflowers, fruit trees, wild grapes and nuts. They lived in villages with palisaded walls, and their homes were dome-shaped structures of bark and reed mats. These Monacan ancestors hunted deer, elk and small game, and they would leave their villages every year to visit their hunting camps. The Monacans traded with the Powhatans to the east and the Iroquois to the north.