The Algonkian word for chief.
Werowance Quotes in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
The Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma quotes below are all either spoken by Werowance or refer to Werowance. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 4
Quotes
Namontack convinced Powhatan to accept the gifts… […] “But a fowle trouble there was to make him kneele to receave his crowne.” Smith asserted that this was because the Indian did not know the “meaning of a Crowne,” but in fact he probably understood only too well the gesture of kneeling to receive a crown at the hands of another. He himself, after all, liked the practice of anointing tributary werowances who were bound to do his bidding. “At last by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and Newport put the Crowne on his head.”
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Werowance Term Timeline in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma
The timeline below shows where the term Werowance appears in Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1: Amonute’s People
...territory, where the Rappahannock tribe lived. They seized many Rappahannock men and left, and the werowance (chief) and Powhatan fretted together over whether they’d return with more men. Now, as the...
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...to Powhatan’s village: one of his kinsmen, a warrior named Opechankeno, has caught the strangers’ “werowance” and is bringing him to Powhatan. This man’s name, the messengers says, is John Smith.
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Chapter 3: First Contact
By December of 1607, John Smith has been captured by the Pamunkey tribe, whose werowance is Opechankeno. After days of being dragged from village to village and presented to local...
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When Smith is brought before Powhatan, he likely finds the werowance adorned in pearls and furs, his wives all around him. Later in life, Smith claims...
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...about his experiences in Werowocomoco, two things are certain: Powhatan made him a kind of werowance in his own right, and while he lived at the village before returning to Jamestown,...
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...priests or gods or trading for goods of “ceremonial or spiritual value.” Powhatan and his werowances wanted guns and metal, and to get them, they wanted to put the English in...
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Chapter 4: Jamestown
...likely recognizes as a power play. He himself has used the practice of “anointing tributary werowances who were bound to do his bidding” to signify his own power in the region.
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...and his men raid a nearby village, killing many and taking more prisoners. The tribe’s werowance conveys a message shortly after, threatening to flee to the forest (as the Powhatan did)...
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Chapter 5: Kidnapped
...that Pocahontas is stationed at the nearby village of Pasptanzie, the home of a Patowomeck werowance named Yapassus. Argall tells the chief that if he does not accept the exchange of...
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