Weroance

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A weroance is an Algonquian word meaning tribal chief, leader, commander, or king, notably among the Powhatan confederacy of the Virginia coast and Chesapeake Bay region. The Powhatan Confederacy, encountered by the colonists of Jamestown and adjacent area of the Virginia Colony beginning in 1607, spoke an Algonquian language. Each tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy was led by its own weroance.

In older texts, especially from the time of the early Jamestown settlers, spelling was not standardized, so the following spellings are used in different texts:

weeroance
weroance
werowance
werowans
wyroance
wyrounce
wyrounnces

A weroansqua is a female ruler. Spellings of this word also vary.

[edit] Matrilineal inheritance

In Powhatan society, women could inherit power, because the inheritance of power was matrilineal. In A Map of Virginia John Smith of Jamestown explains:

His [ Chief Powhatan's] kingdome descendeth not to his sonnes nor children: but first to his brethren, whereof he hath 3 namely Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh; and after their decease to his sisters. First to the eldest sister, then to the rest: and after them to the heires male and female of the eldest sister; but never to the heires of the males. ^[1]

Many writings incorrectly assume inheritance of power was patrilineal (from father to son).

[edit] References

^ Smith, John. A Map of Virginia. Oxford: Joseph Barnes, 1612. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/jamestown-browse?id=J1008, also Repr. in The Complete Works of John Smith (1580-1631). Ed. Philip L. Barbour. Chapel Hill: University Press of Virginia, 1983. Vol. 1, pp. 305-63.