The Man Known as "The Fresh Water Fishing Place"
Tim MacSweeney

In my town, as in many New England towns, there are numerous natural features and man made constructions, all said to be "named after the Indian chief" who lived here in the late 1600’s and into the early 1700’s. He’s identified on ancient land deeds as The Sachem "________," which is translated in almost every source I've ever seen as "The Fresh Water Fishing Place."

His "marke" or signature is said to be a pictograph of a snowshoe (according to a local history written in 1854). I think it may actually be a pictograph of an eel trap.

The word "Sachem" is traced by linguists to the Proto-Algonquian word for leader, "sa:kima:wa" and "all it’s variations are of a linguistic nature, rather than functional (Bragdon 1996)."  Robert Grumet uses the word "sakima" in The Lenapes (1988), and translates it to: "Keeper of the Peace" or "Peace Chief." The man known as the Fresh Water Fishing Place was most likely chosen as "Peace Keeper" by the people who settled with him at a place that was known by a word, or really a contraction of a descriptive string of Algonquian words, that resembled what we think of as this man's name. There may be subtleties to the word that I don't understand right now, but I'm fairly certain that a prefix meaning  "in the middle," has always been left out of the translation. Personally, I think that it describes a good fishing spot physically "in the middle" of the easily worked soil of the floodplain where Native people gathered for those "three seasons of semi-sedentary occupation" that seems to be the prevailing view of riverine Native American Villages of that time period in Southern New England.

So it would seem to me that the man known as "The Fresh Water Fishing Place" acquired his name from the land, rather than giving his name to the land. He is known to us by his formal title, "The Keeper of the Peace at the Fresh Water Fishing Place in the Middle," while his actual name may not have ever been recorded.
 

"Fish Weir in the Middle"
An alternate connotation of "Fresh Water Fishing Place" may be "Fish Weir." This was first suggested to me by the artwork of Mr. David Wagner. I happened to see his "Fish Weir" series of paintings at the Institute for American Indian Studies one winter’s day a few years back. He was kind enough to give me a booklet entitled "Stone Weirs" when we later met again, once more in Washington, CT. It seems that the histories regarding the "Place- Name Origins" of some of the many "Fishing Places" in the Eastern Woodlands, contain references to Fish Weirs. Some of these are the "more familiar" maze-like fish traps known as wooden stake weirs, while others are constructions of stone.  Although many stone weirs are mentioned in the historical record in the East, to date few, if any, have been seriously studied in detail.
(See: http://www.nitehawk.com/alleycat/thesis.html)

Inspired and encouraged by Mr. Wagner, I set out to find the origin of the name that translates to "The Fresh Water Fishing Place," or "Fish Weir in the Middle."
 

The only reference I could find that goes into detail at all regarding stone fish weirs in Western CT was "Indian Fish Weirs along the Housatonic" by Claude C. Coffin in Bulletin 21 of the Archeological Society of Connecticut (1947). He first describes (and draws) the zigzag1 and other more linear stake weirs at the mouth of the Housatonic River, but then states that:

"(The) mode of construction changed beyond the mouth of the river. At the mouth of the river, the Indians drove the stakes into clay or shell bottom, which held them firmly in place. But up the river, where the current was much stronger and swifter, and the bottom was loose with sand and rocks, the stakes would not stand up for long, for the current washed them out. To overcome this difficulty, the Indians built stone walls out from shore, extending down into the river for almost thirty to forty feet. The walls were built at an angle of about seventy five degrees and heading upstream (Figure 10). Some of the stones were quite large, and it would require two men to handle them. After these walls were built, the stakes were driven between the rocks and in that way the river could not undermine them. At this late date, the stakes have all disappeared. However the walls are still there and can be found at very low tide or when the river is very low in the summer month. I have found two such walls, one at Wheeler’s Farms, in the northwestern part of Milford township, another across the river in Shelton Township, north of the mouth of the Far Mill River. I found still another at Otter Rock in Oxford township below the Stevenson power dam. A friend, Mr. Clyde Batchelor, has informed me that he has seen several walls at Still River in New Milford. That was a famous ground for fishing shad in the early days. There is no doubt that, in the early times, these fish weirs were numerous for miles along the river, as far as the shad and other fish went to their spawning grounds. But today they have all about disappeared. Some of course are buried under mud and sand; others have been destroyed by dredging; while others are under flooded areas where power dams have been installed. Extinct also are the fish that once went up the river by the tens of thousands."

(There is an article on-line at ArchNet by Marc Banks that contains some of Coffin’s observations.)
 

The Fish Weir Today

About a quarter mile upstream from the ruins of the earliest known mill in the "district" historically known as "The Fresh Water Fishing Place," is a linear row of stones, about 100 ft. long, that in some ways resembles the "walls" that Coffin writes about. These stones in the above photo are all about 4 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2 feet high, on average. A single row of stones, they differ from those in Coffin's rather rough drawing, although there is one stone that suggests to me that this may have been at one time a double row. At a short distance downstream is a large pile of similar sized and shaped stones, perhaps deposited there by flooding. These stones at Fresh Water Fishing Place (or that actually are Fresh Water Fishing Place) form a diagonal fish weir rather than the "V" weir (weirs?) in Coffin’s figure 10.

Note: Recent flooding has damaged the Weir and  continues to be a threat. The above and below photographs are from June 1997. Those in the detail below are now displaced, including the center stone that appeared to be white marble.

And these stones also resemble another curious stone construction in Fresh Water Fishing Place. On a hillside, not more than 1000 feet away from the possible weir, is a "glacial erratic" that seems to me to be humanly enhanced to resemble a turtle2 shell or carapace. It's about 2 feet wide and high, about 4 feet long, with separate stones that form a head and partial plastron that this head once rested on, as well as stones that could be the turtle's feet.

 Marks on the carapace stone suggest the "sun burst" markings on a box turtle’s shell. They appear to be the size of human hands, carved into the carapace, as highlited here:.
In the Lenni Lenape Creation Story, it is a box turtle that rises up out of an endless sea. Several animals swimming around the turtle unsuccessfully attempt to dive to the sea floor for some mud to place upon the Great Turtle's back, until the beaver finally succeeds. As the beaver climbs onto Turtle's back, he scratches his footprints into the Turtle’s shell and that is why all box turtles have those distinctive markings, the Lenape legend says. I’ve heard the famous "Schagticoke Sisters" from Kent, CT recall the same legend at various times and places, and was made aware of an Oneida version where it’s muskrat that succeeds and leaves his footprints on the Turtle’s shell by Dr. David Drucker. (Email communication 1997).

 I also found it interesting that lithographs of the Oneida Stone in Henry Schoolcraft’s "Indian History" (left) bear great resemblance to this "Box Turtle" sculpture’s carapace stone in western CT (below).

I found it even more interesting that the stones in the weir resemble turtle and tortoise shells of roughly the same size and shape as both of the above stones. They are lined up so that every other stone faces east and West, sort of like a row of turtles side by side.

Some of the stones in the weir, such as the lower stone in the photo above, resemble the following composite sculpture, excavated by chickens (believe it or not) when I enlarged my chicken yard many years ago. I believe this to be a snapping turtle because of the sharp beaked head stone and low rather than high domed back that recalls Cistudo Carolina, the Eastern Box Turtle.




Notes

1I include some of Speck's face paint illustrations to show the diagonal line and zigzag as motifs of Native American People's design

2. As a footnote for those who may ask "Why a turtle?" I include this from Frank Speck's "A Study of the Delaware Big House Ceremony (1931)":

THE TORTOISE AS A SYMBOL.

Outlined in particularly high relief is the tortoise. In the latter creature we have the symbol of life, of perseverance, longevity and steadfastness. As the Delaware patriarch says, "The tortoise is the earth; is life." In the procession of time and among the elemental nature forces the direction of movement is from east to west, according to Delaware belief. So moves the tortoise with measured pace across the earth and through the Big House, carrying out the mythical allegory. At the end of his journey at the "western door," meaning where the sun sets at the edge of the earth, night will come to an end as does the ceremony after the twelveth night. Thus the tortoise "brings the ceremony." His shell in the form of the rattle is carried by the participants who take the part of leaders in the recitations and dances and move in the proper westward direction in the Big House. The saying is, as the ceremony is opened, and after the intervals of pause, "The tortoise is bringing us the worship and we are now ready to touch it again."

The tortoise, moreover, is "he who carries our mother's body" - the latter being a metaphor for the earth. The tortoise being a "grandfather" thus becomes more ancient than the earth. The prominence of this mysterious creature in Delaware religious belief has long been noted by writers dealing with the tribe.

As early as 1670 the Delawares are recorded as declaring that all things came from the tortoise, that it brought forth the world, that from it's back a tree had sprung upon whose branches men had grown, that it had a power and a nature to produce all thing such as earth, and the like; that it brought forth what the supreme divinity wished through it to produce.

Zeisberger mentions the world-flood myth in which it is related that some human survivors took refuge on the back of a turtle whose age was so great that his shell was mossy. And the turtle represents the earth. His rounded back is to the Delawares the earth dome.

Another indication of a belief in the latent potency of the magical powers of this remarkable creature is met with in the esteem paid to the yellow color-pattern on the upper shell of the animal. Face paint patterns of a dignity appropriate to the men taking part in the Big House Ceremony are copied from these markings. The men wearing these patterns are adopting the symbol of the creature who "carries our mother's body."

 The creature that typifies the earth bearer designated as taxko/ xkc (fused together) in Delaware, and whose symbol exists in the form of the shell rattle, is the Box Turtle (Cistudo Carolina).  This reptile is by the rulings of precise taxonomy not a tortoise but a connecting link between the aquatic turtles, or terrapins, and the terrestrial forms, the true tortoises. For the Box Turtles, of the genus Cistudo, deriving their name from the well known structure of the hinged plastron which permits the animal to withdraw the soft parts of it's body completely within the protective cover of the shell, have partially webbed feet, which places them nearer to the Turtles than the Tortoises. Yet to distinguish the reptile of Delaware tradition from the semi-aquatic American turtles, I have adhered to the designation of tortoise in the text and discussion.

Perhaps certain remarks offered by the informant will, in conclusion, add something to our idea of another side of the character of this knowing and potent reptile, so important to the religious sense of the Delaware.
            "The turtle is in its way an evil thing, yet not so evil as a snake which is controlled by the Evil Spirit and also has human face-paint patterns. The Turtle can hurt human beings. Once a boy caught a water-turtle and turned him on his back. The Turtle got mad; raised himself on his legs stiffly. The Turtle raised himself, and launched himself through the air and struck the boy on his head and nearly killed him. The Turtle has a weapon in the sharp frontal plates." (Pgs.44-47)

He also adds:

SYMBOL OF THE TWELVE:

The Delaware also point out the occurrence of thirteen plates in the carapace and twelve in the plastron of all members of the American tortoises and turtles, bordered by the twelve marginal plates on each side. Another evidence in native thought of the tortoise as being a living symbol of the Universe. (Pg. 62)

FIRE SYMBOLISM. - Among the spirit-forces of Delaware cosmology, "Our Grandfather Fire" (te/ n dai) is held in high esteem. The adoration of fire, however, is not sufficiently exclusive to justify the Delawares being called pyrolatrists. Fire, as a spirit-force subordinate to the Great Spirit, is an agency of purification and invigoration…To the Delaware ceremonialists the making of new, "pure" fire symbolizes "renewing of life, fresh vigor, the breathing of pure air uncontaminated by latent forces of disease, new and pure influences for life and health." It is one of the forces to which tobacco is constantly offered, and is an auxiliary to the use of cedar as incense in the act of purification.
                                           Frank Speck in  "Delaware Big House Ceremony" 1931 (pg. 47)