Uttamusack

OC-31

Nearby on the Pamunkey River was the location of paramount chief Powhatan's primary temple site, Uttamusack, the spiritual center of the Powhatan Indians. On the site stood a holy house for Powhatan, and two additional temples also used for ceremonies. Seven priests, who also served as councillors to the paramount chief, cared for the house and temples. Only priests and chiefs were allowed in or near the holy houses. No further information about Uttamusack was recorded after 1609 in colonial records, when Powhatan moved his primary residence from Werowocomoco on the York River to Orapax on the Chickahominy River.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Philip L. Barbour, ed., The Complete Works of John Smith (1580-1631) in Three Volumes, (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 1:169-171, 1:187, 2:122-123; William Strachey “The History of Travel into Virginia: Britannia: The First Book of the First Decade,” Edward Wright Haile, ed., Jamestown Narratives: Eyewitness Accounts of the Virginia Colony The First Decade: 1607-1617 (Champlain, Va.: Round House, 1998), 652-653; Helen C. Rountree, The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture (Norman, Okla. and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 110, 117.