Quinnipiac - Quinnipiac Culture

Quinnipiac Culture

The Long Water Land people lived in their fishing camps along the shores during the spring (Sequan) and summer (Nepun). Their horticultural patterns produced corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, fruits, nuts, berries, all in a plantation-style setting. They used a slash-and-burn technique to replenish the soil and rotated their plantation sites regularly. They used horseshoe crabs and menhadden (alewives) as a natural fertilizer. They caught shell- and scalefish and dried them in the sun or on racks over a fire. The Quinnipiac were avid falconers, using hawks to keep crows away from the corn. The bean and squash plants were planted in the valleys between rows of corn, so that the beans would curl around the corn stalks and weeding was unnecessary. Many other plants considered weeds today were used by the Long Water people for food, beverages, medicine, and for making mats.

In the fall (Taquonck) the Long Water people moved inland along their trails to the winter (Pabouks) grounds, and, along the way they hunted fowl, rabbits, beaver, and other small game, until they came to Meriden “the Pleasant Valley,” where oaks provided shelter against high winds and the acorns were main staples for deer and wild turkey, another winter staple.

During the Colonial period, Quinnipiac men hired out as laborers, fishermen, and guides (where the English constantly got lost), and the Quinnipiac women sold their crafts.

The Quinnipiac and other Algonquians lived in dwellings known as wigwams (elliptical houses with sapling frames covered with bark, mats, skins, or sod) and quinnekommuk (longhouses that were rectangular and two or three times as long as their width, covered with similar coverings). Quiripi/Quinnipiac longhouses averaged thirty to one hundred feet long, by twenty feet wide, and about fifteen feet high. The bigger dwellings were sachems’ houses, which often had five or six fire pits in one dwelling (because they often had their extended family living with them). Religious Society (Wampano or “Men of the Dawn,” Powwauwoag, Medarennawawg, and others) had the biggest longhouses for ceremonial purposes.

The Long Water Land people were well known for their elm bark canoes (light and fast for easy portage), and 20-foot (6 m) to 40-foot (12 m) dugout canoes, used for trade and war.

They reckoned the passing of time by a lunar calendar and an eight-part ceremonial cycle, using various lithic and earth features as observatories to determine the phases of the sun, moon, and stars for planting, harvest, and ceremonies.