The Devil Tries to Kill A Minister, or Why There Are So Many Rocks in New England

Here in New England we are blessed to live in a landscape filled with rocks. If you like giant house-sized boulders, or even just medium sized rocks, you'll find plenty to love in this part of the country.

But where did all these rocks come from?

Maybe I should rephrase that question as "Where the hell did all these rocks come from?," since folklore lays the blame on the Devil.

Not all of New England is rocky. Although the Cape Cod town of Bourne has lots of large rocks, the outer tip of the Cape - Wellfleet, Truro, Provincetown - has almost no boulders at all. Once again, the Devil is to blame.

Boulders!

The story goes something like this. Way back in the 1600s, an English missionary named Richard Bourne was active on the southern part of Cape Cod, helping to found towns and doing God's work in the New World. Naturally, Richard Bourne drew the ire of the Devil. The Devil lived on Cape Cod and didn't like goodie-goodies anywhere near him.

One night while Bourne was sleeping the Devil crept down from the outer Cape to the missionary's hut. He leapt upon the sleeping minister, planning to crush him with his demonic super-strength. To the Evil One's surprise, Bourne successfully fought him off, even though the minister was not particularly large or strong.

"You won this time, Richard Bourne, but I'll be back," the Devil said. "Just you wait!" He stomped away to regain his strength and scheme.

Several nights later he came back to Bourne's dwelling, and once again the minister fought him off.  Once again the Devil stomped off, vowing to return.

This went on for several years, but the Devil was never able to harm Bourne because God was on his side.

Finally, the Devil realized he had to change his plan. He gathered up all the rocks he could find on the Outer Cape and put them in his big leather apron. Then he set off for Richard Bourne's house. He was going to dump all the rocks on the minister while he slept and crush him.

The Province Lands in Provincetown: a lot of sand, but no boulders...

As the Devil slowly waked down the Cape, carrying hundreds of boulders in his apron, a chickadee flew at him from out of the woods. The swift little bird flew around the Devil, mocking his plan to crush the minister.

"Richard Bourne defeated you before, he will defeat you again!" the smarmy little bird sang.

The Devil swatted at the bird, but chickadees are fast and it flew out of his reach. Then from a distant tree branch it sang it's mocking song again.

The Devil does not have a very good temper, and he was furious that such a tiny little bird would mock such a magnificent demon as himself. With a  howl of fury he ran towards the chickadee.

As he ran he tripped over a tree branch and fell. All the boulders he was carrying in his apron spilled out and rolled across the landscape. This area is now the rocky town of Bourne.

With a big sigh the Devil walked back to the boulder-free Outer Cape, where he's remained ever since. Even a fallen angel knows when he's been beaten.

*****

This story appears in Elizabeth Renard's book The Narrow Land (1934) in a section called "Tales of the Praying Indians." Praying Indian was a term that referred to Native Americans in New England who were early converts to Christianity, and the Christian content of this story is quite strong (if you didn't notice). 

It probably has its origins in earlier pre-Christian Wampanoag legends, though. Many stories have survived telling how the Wampanoag deity Maushop, who was gigantic in size and strength, created rock formations and ocean channels. Some of them are even very similar to the one told in Renard's book. For example, in one Wampanoag tale Maushop is building  a bridge to Cuttyhunk when a crab bites his toe. Maushop drops his rocks and storms off angrily. Those rocks now form a sunken reef.

Me and some rocks in the Blue Hills.

However, anthropologist William Simmons notes in his book Spirit of the New England Tribes that Wampanoags on Cape Cod weren't the only ones telling tales about the Devil dropping rocks from his apron. The Reverend William Chaffin of Easton, Massachusetts claimed that the boulders in that town also fell out of the Devil's apron, and I've read something similar in Clifton Johnson's book What They Say in New England. So it seems like Yankees of English descent were also giving supernatural explanations for the rocks that litter the landscape.

Here in the Boston area, we have a type of stone called puddingstone (aka Roxbury conglomerate) that looks like an old-fashioned lumpy pudding with dried fruit in it. In his 1830 poem "The Dorchester Giant" Oliver Wendell Holmes humorously claims it was formed when a family of giants flung their pudding all across the landscape.

They flung it over to Roxbury hills,
They flung it over the plain,
And all over Milton and Dorchester too
Great lumps of pudding the giants threw;
They tumbled as thick as rain.

Giant and mammoth have passed away,
For ages have floated by;
The suet is hard as a marrow bone,
And every plum is turned to a stone,
But there the puddings lie.

He wasn't serious, but it's interesting that he also proposed a supernatural explanation.

We know now that New England's rocks were deposited by melting glaciers, but the old myths and legends are as much part of the landscape as the boulders themselves.

Squant, Ol' Squant, and Granny Squannit

Roger Williams wrote that the Narragansett Indians revered thirty-seven different gods. Most of the ancient gods have been forgotten since Williams lived in the 17th century, but a few of them are still acknowledged by the Indians of southern New England. One of them is Maushop, a giant who created Nantucket and other geographic features. I wrote about him a few years ago.

His wife, Squant, is also still acknowledged by the Wampanoag and the Mohegan. Squant's name is most likely derived from Squauanit, meaning "woman's god", one of the deities recorded by Roger Williams. Squant is also known as Ol' Squant and Granny Squannit.



According to legend, Squant and Maushop had a troubled marriage. Maushop had a temper that matched his huge height, and once threw all their children into the ocean, where they were transformed into whales. Squant was understandably upset about this, and mourned the loss of her children. Her tears enraged Maushop even more, and he threw her from their home on Martha's Vineyard to Rhode Island, where she was transformed into Sakonnet Rock. Sakonnet Rock originally was shaped like a woman, but over time it's limbs fell off until it became unrecognizable. When Squant mourns for her children, the wind sighs and the surf moans.

Another story claims that Squant was once very beautiful, but her eyes were cut into square shapes by an enemy (possibly Cheepi, aka Hobbomock) who found her asleep on the beach. Squant hid her deformity by growing her beautiful black hair over her face. Her hair is now so long that she is said to resemble a huge haystack.

These myths show Squant as a passive victim of other deities, but that's not really the case. She is still quite active in the world, and isn't just petrified down on the Rhode Island shore.

Here's an example. In 1928, a group of schoolchildren and their teacher were walking along the beach near Mashpee. As they strolled, they saw what they thought was a haycart being pulled by oxen. But then they realized there weren't any oxen - the giant pile of hay was moving by itself! It was Squant. They all fled in fear. Mashpee children were instructed to never make fun of Squant or she would "tear you all to pieces." During the annual Cranberry Festival in the 20th century, "a child was given a basket of food to carry into the dunes to set down at a lonely spot as a gift to old Granny Squannit, and cautioned to hurry away without ever looking back."

Although somewhat terrifying, Squant also has a positive side and helps shamans. In the nineteenth century, Wampanoag herbalist William Perry was well-known across southern New England for his healing abilities. He credited them to Granny Squannit. If he needed to find a particularly rare herb, he would leave an offering of food under a pine tree and she would tell him the plant's location.

Granny Squannit has a similar reputation among the Mohegan, who say she rules the Makiawasug, the little people who dwell in the forest and under the hills. In one Mohegan tale, a medicine woman descends to an underground chamber to heal Granny Squannit from an illness. In thanks, the goddess gives the woman a basket of items to use in her healing practice.

So, in closing I'd say be respectful when you're walking on the beach or in the woods, because you never know if Squant is watching you.

I found most of this information in William Simmons' Spirit of the New England Tribes.

How Maushop Created the Most Expensive Real Estate in New England

My last post was about Indian deities; my previous posts were about Provincetown, a summer resort. Can I write about Indian gods and resort towns in one post? Yes, if I write about Nantucket.

Oh, Nantucket, playground of the wealthy elites! I can understand why, since it is so beautiful there. No one is sure what the name (an Algonquian word) means exactly, but it may mean something like "far away island" or "in the midst of waters." Nantucket is nicknamed the Grey Lady because of its occasional foggy weather.

In the past it also had a less attractive nickname: the Devil's Ash-Heap. I can't imagine people saying "Where am I spending my summer? Why, on the Devil's Ash-Heap, of course!"

According to a legends told for hundreds of years by the Wampanoag of Gay Head on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket was created by Maushop ("Big Man" in Proto-Algonquian), the giant culture hero of southern New England. William Baylies, a physician from Dighton, first recorded this story in 1786:

On a time, an offering was made to him of all the tobacco on Martha's Vineyard, which having smoked, he knocked the snuff out of his pipe, which formed Nantucket. (found in William Simmons Spirit of the New England Tribes)

Later versions of the story elaborated on this, adding details such as Maushop creating Nantucket as a refuge for two lovers whose marriage was opposed by their parents.

Maushop was basically a benevolent force, but Nantucket was called the Devil's Ash-Heap because Christian writers assumed that all indigenous gods were evil. For this same reason, an off-shore rock formation Maushop created is named the Devil's Bridge, and a bowl shaped depression on Gay Head where Maushop used to live is called the Devil's Den.

Most legends recorded in the 18th and 19th century say that Maushop abandoned New England when the European settlers came. However, legends from the 20th century note that he might still be lurking around. Dolores Tantaquidgeon recorded the following in the 1920's:

Maushop takes the form of various creatures and may be sensed about Gay Head at times as a gust of cold wind that rushes past one...

Nosapocket, a member of the Mashpee tribe, told William Simmons in 1981 that she encountered a large, hairy giant in the woods. It eventually came to her house and looked into her window.

And its chest I would say had to be about five feet wide. Its lungs were bigger than my body, and it just breathed... I was not very frightened, but excited that such beings still lived amongst the Mashpee Wampanoag.

Many pages of Maushop stories can be found in Simmons's excellent book Spirit of the New England Tribes.

37 Indian Deities from Rhode Island - or maybe just 13

An illustration of Roger Williams and his neighbors. I don't think the Narragansett wore shirts with buffalo on them - there weren't any buffalo in Rhode Island!

About ten years ago I realized I knew quite a bit about European mythology and folklore, but not very much about the lore of New England, where I've lived all my life. It seemed like a big gap in my knowledge, so I started reading. And reading. And I'm still reading!

I was particularly curious about the religion of the Algonquians before the Europeans came. Unfortunately, they didn't leave written records, so we have to get our information from the English setters, who weren't sympathetic to native beliefs and sought to stamp them out. This is particularly true in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, which were more heavily colonized by the English than the northern New England states.

One exception was Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, who was both sympathetic and curious about his neighbors, the Narragansett. His 1643 book A Key Into the Language of the Americas recorded not only their vocabulary, but some of their religious beliefs. Granted, Williams was still a devout Christian and seems a little squeamish about the native religion, but he was light years ahead of his peers in terms of being open-minded.

Williams wrote that the Narragansett worshipped 37 gods. Unfortunately, he only provides the names of 12, who are:

Wompanand - the Eastern God
Chekesuwand - the Western God
Wunnanameanit - the Northern God
Wowwand - the Southerne God
Wtuomanit - the House God
Squauanit - the Woman's God
Muckquachuckquand - the Children's God
Keesuckquand - the Sun God
Nanepaushat - the Moon God
Paumpagussit - the Sea
Yotaanit - the Fire God
Kautantowwit - the Southwest God, to whose House all soules goe, and from who came their corne, beanes as they say.

He also mentions Wetucks, "a man that wrought great miracles among them, and walking upon the waters, etc. with some kind of broken resemblance to the sonne of God." Wetucks may have been another name for Maushop, the culture-hero/giant of southern New England who is similar to the northern hero Glooskap. The modern Wampanoag still tell stories about Maushop, and his wife Granny Squant, who is probably Squauanit, the woman's god (or goddess) by another name.

It's great that there are still stories being told about Maushop and Squant, and I'm happy that Roger Williams recorded at least 13 names of the deities. But it would have been better if he had recorded all 37 names. Best of all would be if these gods were still being worshipped here in New England. It makes me realize how much has been lost, probably never to be recovered.

I don't want to end my post on a gloomy note, so I'll say thanks to everyone who has commented in the last few weeks. I really appreciate all the feedback and information!