Pamunkey
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Enrolled members: 200 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 United States ( Virginia) |
|
| Languages | |
| English, formerly Powhatan | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mattaponi, Chickahominy |
The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is one of 11 Virginia Indian tribes recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the state's only federally recognized tribe, receiving its status in 2015. The historical tribe was part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking tribes. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up of over 30 tribes, estimated to total about 10,000–15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey tribe made up about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607.
When the English arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful groups of the Powhatan chiefdom. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay.
The Pamunkey tribe is one of only two that still retain reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government. The Pamunkey reservation is located on some of its ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County, Virginia. The Mattaponi reservation, the only other in the state, is nearby on the Mattaponi River.
The traditional Pamunkey way of life was subsistence living. They lived through a combination of fishing, trapping, hunting, and farming. The latter was developed in the late Woodland Period of culture, roughly 900 CE - 1600 CE. The peoples used the Pamunkey River as a main mode of transportation and food source. The river also provided access to hunting grounds, and other tribes. Access to the river was crucial, because Pamunkey villages were seldom permanent settlements. Because the Pamunkey people did not use fertilizers, they moved their fields and homes about every ten years to allow land to lie fallow and recover from cultivation.
...
Wikipedia