Word of the day: hubbub!

What's all the hubbub? A still from "After the Mayflower."

On Friday we watched the first episode of the PBS mini-series We Shall Remain, which explores different events in Native American history. Episode one, "After the Mayflower", relates the story of Wampanoag sachem Massasoit and his son, Metacom (aka King Philip) and their interactions with the English settlers. No spoiler alert needed here - it doesn't have a happy ending.

In one scene, the Wampanoags and the English get together for the first Thanksgiving. In addition to food, the Wampanoags bring a game of chance that involves bouncing colored pieces of bone or wood in a basket. While they're bouncing the basket, the players chant "Hub! Hub!" The game was called, naturally, hubbub.

Meaning a noisy uproar, hubbub is still a common word today. For example, if you hear some noisy neighbor kids outside, you can scream out the window: "Hey! What's all the hubbub?!?"

I thought the word "hubbub" was coined to describe this game, and came into English usage from Algonquin. I was wrong. Apparently, it was used in English as early as the 1500's, well before the Pilgrims came to America. Either it was just a coincidence the game required people to shout "Hub! Hub!", or the Pilgrims misheard the shout that way.

I got my information about the hubbub game from Howard Russell's Indian New England Before the Mayflower. A great book!

More New England Snake Lore

The timber rattlesnake, crotalus horridus - still found in Massachusetts?

I always associate this time of year with snakes, so here's another post about them. My last snake post was about a piece of European lore found in Massachusetts, but the Algonquians had a lot of snake lore as well.

There are many varieties of snakes in New England, including two poisonous species: the copperhead (agkistrodon contortix) and the timber rattlesnake (crotalus horridus). Snakes are powerful creatures, representing the underworld, the soul, and spiritual warfare. It was believed that snakes have the ability to control the weather.

Rattlesnakes were both revered and feared by many Native American groups. For example, if an Ojibwa encountered a rattlesnake, he would address it as Grandfather, propitiate it with tobacco smoke, and ask for its blessing. Alexander Henry, a fur trader in the Great Lakes in the 1700's, relates how a band of Ojibwa sacrificed a dog to a rattlesnake in an attempt to bring favorable weather. Even those Native Americans who killed rattlesnakes did so with great respect. The Potawatomi of Ohio would sprinkle the body of a dead rattlesnake with tobacco and pray over it to avoid its wrath.

Among the Algonquians of southern New England, the underworld god Hobomock would most often appear to shamans as a snake, and dreaming about a snake was a sign that an individual was destined to become a shaman. Rattlesnakes were one of the guardian spirits (along with hawks and crows) that helped shamans heal their clients - and kill their enemies.

After the New England tribes converted to Christianity, they associated snakes with old pagan practices. For example, the Wampanoag of Cape Cod told how Elisha Naughaught, one of their church deacons, was attacked in the 1700's by a group of black snakes. They were perhaps sent by an enemy pagan shaman, and are clearly indicative of underworld powers.

I got my information from two sources: William Simmons's Spirit of the New England Tribes, and Thomas Palmer's Landscape With Reptile, a fantastic book about the history and lore of rattlesnakes in Massachusetts. Once extremely common in Massachusetts, rattlesnakes are now only found in the Blue Hills south of Boston.

Tonight is the Full Flower Moon

Jeff, one of my faithful readers, has informed me I'm not updating this blog enough. Sadly, it's true. Work has been busy lately. I'm grateful I have a job, so I'm not complaining. But for Jeff, here are two updates in one day.

Tonight is the Full Flower Moon. I've noted before that some of the past moons didn't fully live up to their names (no wolves in my neighborhood during the Full Wolf Moon, for example).

The Full Flower Moon is right on the money, though. There are flowers everywhere right now, particularly lilacs. The entire city is fragrant!

As always, I get my info about the moon names from the Old Farmer's Almanac.

There are other systems for naming the full moons in a year. This page has a list of several, some of them quite dramatic. I particularly like the Hungry Ghost Moon, Panther Moon, and the Moon When the Horns Are Broken Off.

Why Woodpeckers Have Red Spots

Cute red feathers, or ancient bloody marking?

As I was walking home this afternoon, I heard a loud tapping noise. "Tap tap tap tap tap!" I hear woodpeckers all the time, but this was the fastest and most frantic woodpecking I think I've heard. Maybe the warm weather today was driving the woodpecker into a frenzy!

Like all the woodpeckers I see in Boston, this one had a red spot on the back of his neck. Evolutionary science would tell us the red spot developed as a random mutation that possibly survived because it gave the woodpeckers who had it an advantage over those that didn't.

Algonquian folklore provides another explanation, however. I've already mentioned Glooskap before on this blog. During one of his adventures, he battled a giant monster who was making the water stagnant and undrinkable for the local humans. The monster was only vulnerable in one spot, and Glooskap didn't know where to strike. Luckily, a woodpecker showed him the monster's weak point, and Glooskap killed it with an arrow. He then marked the woodpecker's head with monster blood to thank it for its help. This story puts those cute little birds in a different light!

I found one version of the story here, but I think I've read it other places as well.

The First Snakes of Spring

I was walking in one of my neighborhood's parks on Sunday and saw two garter snakes sunning themselves. It wasn't particularly warm, but I guess they were tired of hibernating. For me, seeing snakes is a sure sign it's finally spring.

The garter snake is the official reptile of Massachusetts, according to a bill passed by the state Senate and House a couple years ago. This pro-snake attitude is a big change from the state's past. Early settlers in Massachusetts really hated snakes, but also attributed them lots of supernatural power. As a result there is a lot of particularly crazy snake folklore. The following story, which is one of my favorites, was recorded by Clifton Johnson in the late 1800's.

A farmer and his wife had a young daughter with a strange habit. Every evening, she refused to eat dinner with her family, but instead took her plate and ate alone outside. Since she was young, her parents at first humored her odd request. But after the little girl did this for several weeks, her father became curious and secretly followed her outside one evening.

He was surprised to see his daughter sitting by an old stone wall, calmly sharing her dinner with a large rattlesnake that she addressed as Graycoat. Fearing for her life, the farmer rushed from his hiding place and killed the rattlesnake with a shovel, despite his daughter's pleas. Shortly thereafter, the little girl began to sicken. Despite their best efforts, the farmer and his wife watched helplessly as their daughter wasted away and died from an unknown ailment.

Although the girl's parents were puzzled at her death, we shouldn't be. Ancient European legends teach that snakes are often more than simple reptiles. They may really be fetches or fylgias - human souls in animal form. When the father killed the snake, he destroyed his daughter's soul. Medieval legends from Europe teach similar lessons. For example, a legend from Silesia tells how a man found a large dead snake in front of the house after his mother died, while Olaus Magnus wrote in 1555 that a snake will become imbued with the soul of a child whose bowl it shares. If the snake is killed, the child will die. (I found that piece of lore in Claude LeCouteux's excellent book, Witches, Werewolves and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages.)

It's pretty amazing that a belief from medieval Europe could still be found in Massachusetts in the 1800s! Please avoid killing snakes, in case it is true.