Note 14 — Massasoit’s Town Sowams in Pokanoket

The Indians accounted for the serpentine course of Kickemuit River thus. Ages ago, they said, a deluge covered the whole face of the earth. When the waters subsided, a certain divinity who inhabited Pokanoket, feeling hungry sallied forth in search of food. Espying a huge eel basking in the mud, he raised his spear aloft but the eel, perceiving his design, began wriggling rapidly in the opposite direction. As it twisted, first to the right then to the left, its pursuer was obliged to also constantly turn and turn and soon became so fatigued that the eel easily out-distanced him and finally plunged into Mount Hope Bay. The track left in the mud by pursued and pursuer eventually became the bed of the Kickemuit River.