Description
The Saponi are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. They were part of the Monacan confederacies. Saponi, Tutelo, and Yesang were collectively called the Nahyssan. The Cayuga adopted the Saponi into the League of the Haudenosaunee in 1753, and some Saponi descendants are part of the Cayuga Nation. At the time of European contact up to the early 18th century, the Saponi lived in present-day Virginia and North Carolina. Their settlements extended into the New River in West Virginia. In the 17th and 18th centuries, some Saponi settled along the Roanoke River, its tributary the Staunton River, and the Yadkin River.
Language
Siouan language
Culture
They were an Eastern Siouan people with a matrilineal society. They had settled villages and built houses of post-and-pole frames with central hearths. In the 17th century, men wore breechclouts and women wore deerhide aprons. Important leaders, such as medicine men, wore feather cloaks. British explorer John Lawson wrote that the Saponi were governed by a headman, an elders' council, and, when necessary, a war chief. Historically, Saponi people hunted deer, bear, beaver, squirrel, turkey, and other fowl. They may have hunted woodland bison and elk. They fished in rivers and the Atlantic Ocean. They farmed maize, beans, and squash and harvested wild plants including various nuts, berries, and stone fruits. Chiefs used staffs of hickory wood.