![]() In addition, they used mortar and pestles in their daily activities and made baskets and sleeping mats from the rushes that grew along the Alewife wetlands. Women and children collected wild berries, greens and herbs for food and medicines. Water collection might have been the job of the children, and making twig brooms. Today, the Little River and Alewife Brook, channelized in some places by concrete, are the heirs to the Menotomy River, draining the Alewife area into the Missi-Tuk. The Little River, a tributary, was the outlet of Spy Pond and joined Alewife Brook near today’s Alewife MBTA station. The Menotomy, now called Alewife Brook, was described as a “beautiful outlet” that undulated its way through the marshes and meadows from Fresh Pond to the Missi-Tuk. In autumn and winter camps, plentiful supplies of pure water are gathered from nearby streams and springs such as the Menotomy River. Fresh water had to be hauled (to the longhouses and smaller summer lodges called “wetus”) and kept clean for drinking and cooking. Nuts and berries were eaten fresh but, more importantly, were dried and pounded into meal, boiled or crushed for their oil. Women in the “Missi-Tuk” headwaters in the Alewife may have planted peas or grapes in this area. Remains of the alewife fish not eaten are placed in the ground with seeds and used as fertilizer. They dig grounds in preparation for growing, giving special attention to planting the “Three Sisters”: corn, beans and squash. Other food is dehydrated by drying it in the sun. Fish and game are smoked and preserved using salt collected from the ocean during the summer. The women have started fires and are preparing fish and shellfish brought back from their summer encampments by the ocean. In early autumn, the people returned to their longhouses near the land we call “Alewife.” A matrilineal tribe, the women owned the longhouses, which held several families. Elders passed on their knowledge using ritual dance, musical instruments, stories and songs. This would have been a time of celebration, of storytelling and of teaching the traditional ways to the next generation. The alewife and the blueback river herring will soon begin their annual journey from the ocean near where Boston is today to their freshwater spawning places up the Missi-Tuk – meaning “great tidal river.” This we call the Mystic. ![]() The women of the longhouse are preparing storage pots and baskets. Imagine it is mid-April four centuries ago, in the area we now call Alewife. (Photo: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Wetlands of the Alewife in 1904, before the Little River was channelized.
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