Powhatan Lords of Life and Death

Powhatan Lords of Life and Deathis a richly textured portrait and revisionist study of the famous Native leader Powhatan and his realm, which encompassed the Tidewater area of Virginia from the James River to the Potomac River. Despite the prominence of Powhatan during the early colonial years, our knowledge of him and life in his realm has been largely filtered through the eyewitness accounts of Europeans. Margaret Holmes Williamson's incisive structuralist perspective and impressive synthesis and reinterpretation of available records provides a more complex and accurate view of the realm of Powhatan during the crucial early decades of the seventeenth century.Williamson illuminates alternative conceptions of power and cosmology that force reconsideration of important components of Powhatan society, including the basis of leadership, the relationship between political leaders and religious specialists, the role of ritual, and the resonance of Powhatan cosmological beliefs with those of other southeastern Native peoples. By revisiting this pivotal figure in American history,Powhatan Lords of Life and Deathenables us to appreciate more fully Powhatan and the fascinating world he helped to create.

Margaret Holmes Williamson is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mary Washington.