Description
The Pennacook, also known by the names Penacook and Pennacock of the Northeastern Woodlands who lived in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and southern Maine. They were not a united tribe but a network of politically and culturally allied communities. Penacook was also the name of a specific Native village in what is now Concord, New Hampshire. The Pennacook were related to but not a part of the original Wabanaki Confederacy, which includes the Mi?kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot peoples. David Stewart-Smith argues that the Penacook are Central Abenaki people. Pennacook is also written as Penacook and Pennacock. The name Pennacook roughly translates (based on Abenaki cognates) as "at the bottom of the hill." Smallpox and other causes reduced the Pennacook population from an estimated 2,000 in 1600 to 1,250 in 1674.
Language
Algonquian-speaking
Culture
The Pennacook economy depended on hunting, fishing, and the cultivation of corn (maize). They were semisedentary, moving seasonally in response to the availability of food resources. Pennacook people were semi-sedentary. Families and bands had permanent claims to territory, and their hierarchical political structure from locally representative sagamores to more regionally representative sachems was fundamentally democratic and designed to reduce conflict and provide social stability. During the summers, families would disperse to summer villages and hunting camps. Women did most of the work of building and maintaining homes as well as farming. Their main crops were varieties of maize/corn and squash, which they planted along rivers and in meadows.