28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 82 



the water, with the mat- or bark-covered habitations scattered through 

 the surrounding wooded area — now cuhivated lands where the crude 

 stone implements are found. 



Many objects have already been recovered from the site but it is 

 expected that others, of equal or even greater interest, may be dis- 

 covered during the continued examination of the area, to be described 

 at another time. 



THE "SAPPONEY INDIAN TOWN" 



There is no known record of a white man having visited Mona- 

 sukapanoiigh, the ancient Sa^xini village on the banks of the Rivanna, 

 and consec^uently no description of the settlement has been preserved. 

 It was probably an extensive and important center. It is believed 

 that some time before the year 1670 the people, or at least the greater 

 part of them, moved from the valley of the Rivanna and went south- 

 ward to establish a new village which, according to Mooney, " was 

 probably on Otter river, a northern tributary of the Roanoke, in what 

 is now Campbell county, Virginia, nearly south of Lynchburg." ' 

 Here they were visited by Lederer in 1670, and by the Batts party 

 during the following year, but these explorers failed to describe the 

 settlement. Soon the movement was resumed ; they wandered far, 

 nearly reaching the center of North Carolina, later returning to 

 Virginia. 



A generation after their first contact with Europeans, through 

 the influence of Governor Spots wood, the Saponi and remnants of 

 other tribes became established in the vicinity of Fort Christanna, 

 about 10 miles north of Roanoke River, in the present Brunswick 

 County, Virginia. 



Although the Saponi had undoubtedly changed greatly from their 

 primitive state, yet they must have retained many of the manners and 

 ways of life practiced in earlier years at their ancient home on the 

 Rivanna. An interesting and at this time most valuable account of 

 the people as they appeared in the spring of 1716 is to be found in 

 the journal of one who visited them at that time.^ The journal is a 

 record of a journey made by Fontaine and Governor Spots wood from 

 Williamsburg to Fort Christanna and return during the first ten days 

 of April, 1716. To quote from the journal: '' The ^fJi day. — After 

 breakfast, I went down to the Sapponey Indian town, which is about 

 a musket-shot from the fort. I walked round to view it. It lieth in 



' Op. cit., p. 34. 



^Journal of John Fontaine. In Memoirs of a Huguenot family, by Ann 

 Maury. New York, 1853. 



