Wahunsonacook is the Indian name of the of the great werowance (chief), Powhatan, leader of the Algonquin Nation when the English settlers arrived on these eastern shores of America in the early 1600s.

     Wahunsonacoke is the Indian name of the great werowance, George Major Cook, chief of the Pamunkey Indian tribe for more than 30 years. He is reputed to be a descendant of his namesake. We honor and pay tribute to Chief Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, another great wereowance of the Pamunkey Indian tribe, the son of Wahunsonacoke, on the anniversary of his one hundredth birthday. “Chief”, as he is known to many of his friends, served as leader of the Pamunkey Indians for more than four decades.

     He leaves to the tribe as fine a legacy as his father before him. Much of his life has been dedicated to continuing to live and work in the “Old Ways” and to educating the public about his tribe and their ancestors. The Pamunkey Indians are one of two tribes who live on reservations in Virginia. They are the only tribe still living on their ancestral land, be it much diminished in size. It is reputed that the first Wahunsonacook, Powhatan, is buried on this most hallowed ground.

     Peruse these pages and feel the spirituality, humor, kindness and respect that Chief emanates to those around him. Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook, was born on November 19, 1899, on the reservation. “Ten children were born at that house, and all of them were born at home, not in a hospital. The old frame house is torn down,” Chief says. 

     On the reservation, they still call me ‘Peach,’” Chief laughs. “Well, instead of momma asking me to kiss her, she’d say, ‘Gimme a peach.’” Chief leans forward, smiling, as if to give the kiss. “And so I’d know to kiss her. She’s been telling me all along, run and kiss her. So finally, she got around to–she left the ‘Give me’ off. She just said, ‘Peach!’ I’d run and kiss her. Other people were hearing momma doing that. Then everybody in the family started doing that. Other people started callin me ‘Peach’. Now I’ve got the whole world calling me Peach!”

     His momma’s name was Theodora Octavius Cook. “My youngest sister, Dora, lived with my mother when she died. They lived on the reservation. They were living in the old house we were born in. That’s only been a few years ago,” Chief recalls. 

     “I remember his mother,” says Floyd Almond, deacon of Pamunkey Baptist Church. “She lived to be 91. His father died before I was born. His sister, Pocahontas, was never married. She was a beautiful lady even until she died. Chief’s brother, Ottigney Pontiac (Tig), move to Pennsylvania when he was young.” 
Chief continues, “My father's name was George Major, Wahansunacoke, not ‘Cook’, but ‘Coke’. But I spell my name Cook, no ‘e’”. 

     “Mother and Father named me after I was born, contrary to stories” about Indians being named according to signs or “medicine” prior to their birth. “I write my name as ‘Chief’ or ‘T. D. Cook’, for Tecumseh Deerfoot Cook. I don’t sign it as ‘Peach’. A lot of other people, who didn’t know me, wouldn’t know the name ‘Peach’, unless they were from around here.”

     Talking about an old song, Chief says, “I don’t know where it was composed. Heard it only around here on the reservation. It was about Beatty. You remember Henry Clay Beatty who killed his wife? Been years and years. Read it in the newspaper. He hid his gun. I read where he hid it behind a stump. One day somebody came here and gave my daddy a piece of the stump. Said, ‘Here, Chief, I’m going to give you a piece of Henry Clay Beatty’s stump.’ I don’t know why he wanted it.

     “Somebody made a song up. 

     ‘Here comes Beatty in his automobile

     ‘Runnin so fast That he couldn’t see the wheel

     ‘Ring on his finger and a gun in his hand

     ‘Trying to lay the murder on an innocent man.’

     “That was the song. Beatty killed his wife and hid his gun under the stump. People are going there after that getting pieces of the stump. I don’t know why they wanted that for a souvenir. So somebody made up a song. I don’t know who in the world composed that song. I never heard it. Nobody else ever heard of it except me. I guess maybe I composed it,” he laughs. “I used to sing it.”

     “My grandmother back then was a midwife. She helped deliver babies on the reservation,” says Joyce Bradby Krigsbold, Chief’s niece and daughter of his sister, Dora. She tells a story about visiting her brother-in-law in Alaska. “We were watching TV and there was a documentary on Indians. It was about Pocahontas” In the film Chief George Major Cook translated Pocahontas as “Little Snow Feather.” Joyce continues, “There came my grandfather, Chief Cook’s father. He came on and he was talking about the different things. I said, ‘There’s my grandfather!’ I could not believe it! 

     “That was in the 1920-something. They were coming out of the woods. They had my grandmother singing a song, and Pocahontas singing. I was thrilled!” After returning home Joyce obtained a copy of the longer version, “It is with my grandfather and my grandmother. It’s short takes of a speech that he gave. I could not believe it. Peach was just thrilled. He hadn’t seen his father (since he died in 1930). That was (filmed) in 1920. I think it was here on the reservation. It was about paying taxes to the governor. I never dreamed, in my wildest dreams, that I’d ever see him speaking.

     “Just like my grandfather (Chief’s father), went all over the state campaigning for the Indians and trying to get things for the Native Americans and for this tribe. He was a great spokesperson for us,” Joyce continues. “Chief Cook has taken after him. He was a great speaker. He could always make a great speech and still can. He’s one in a million. When he’s gone–they broke the mold when they made him–there’s no more like him. I’ve heard that his father was like that. He was a great chief, for 32 years. I’ve heard a lot of people say that he worked at being a chief. It wasn’t in name only. Just like Chief Cook.”

     Joyce continues, “His father was 75 when he died (in 1930). My grandmother lived to be 91. My mother (Dora) would have been 91, had she lived. She died in July 5, 1994. My aunt was old, but not a hundred, on my father’s side, Chief Cook’s wife’s sister. Although my mother was almost 91 when she died, she was active. She had a big garden, she canned, she worked in pottery. You’d look at her and think she was about 65. All of them had good genes.” 

© 1999 Janet Abbott Fast & Jewell Kirby Keroher All Rights Reserved. To order this book, click here. 
To contact Janet Abbot Fast via email .