1880. | and Early English Colonists. 475 
teatig. Under the former name are included several species of 
the herring tribe, aum’ su (plural waums uog) meaning ‘small fish,’ 
Munnawhatteaig corrupted to menxhaden, means literally ‘ fertil- 
izer’ (that which manures), this name was applied to the herring 
and alewife as well as the ‘menhaden’ proper—all these species 
being used by the lagian for manuring their cornfields. 
“In the northern and eastern parts s of New England, the Bre- 
voortia is commonly called pawhagen, and probably in some locali- 
ties ‘poghaden’ (as you write it and which is nearer the Indian 
original), though I have not heard it so pronounced by Eastern 
fishermen. This name in the Eastern dialects has precisely the 
same meaning as ‘menhaden’ (or rather Munnawhatteaûg in 
Southern New England). The Abnaki (ż. e., coast of Maine) name 
was pookagan as Rasles wrote it, and the verb from which it is 
derived he translated by ‘ oz engraisse la terre. 
I next appeal to the records of the Colonies. In Governor 
Bradford's “ History of Plimouth Plantation,” is given an account 
of the early agricultural experiences of the Plymouth colonists. 
In April, 1621, at the close of the first long dreary winter, “ they 
(as many as were able) began to plant their corne, in which 
service Squanto (an Indian) stood them in great stead, showing 
them both ye manner how to set it and after how to dress & tend 
it. Also he tould them, axcepte they got fish & set with it (in 
these old grounds) it would come to nothing; and he showed 
them yt in ye middle of Aprili, they should have store enough 
come up ye brooke by which they begane to build and taught 
them how to take it.” 
Another allusion to the practice of the Indians in this respect 
may be found in George Mourt’s “Relation or Journal of the 
Beginning and Proceedings of the English Plantation settled at 
Plimoth, in New England, by certain English Adventurers both 
Merchants and others. * * * London, 1622.” “We set the 
last spring some twenty acres of Indian corn, and sowed some six 
acres of barley and pease, and, according to the manner of In- 
dians, we manured our ground with herrings, or rather shads, 
which we have in great abundance and take with great ease at 
our doors. Our corn did prove well, and God be praised, we 
had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent 
good,’? 
1 Coll, Mass. Hist. Soc., 4th Series, 111, 1856, p. 100. 
* Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc., 2d Series, Ix, 1832, p 
The fish made use of by the early settlers a Manisch were doubtless in 
large part the spring alewife, Pomolobus vernalis, and perhaps also the summer ale- 
wife, P. estivalis, and an occasional shad, Alosa sapidissima. 
