Editor’s Note: The following was published in Moshup’s Footsteps, a 2001 book of recollections and short essays by the late Helen Manning of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Cranberry Day, an annual celebration of the Wampanoag people, will be celebrated on Tuesday, Oct. 12. The piece appears here with permission.

Moshup’s wife, Squant, was the caretaker of the cranberry bogs and convened the first Cranberry Day. The cranberry is one of the few fruits native to North America; others include grapes and blueberries. It is widely held that the wild cranberry, or sassamanesh in Wampanoag, is rich in Vitamin C and has medicinal and nutritional properties. Tamson Weeks, a Wampanoag herbalist, used cranberries to heal a variety of complaints including blood disorders, stomach ailments, liver problems, scurvy and fever. She also said a poultice of cranberries could cure cancer.

Cranberry Day marked the end of the summer season and the time for families to move inland to winter camps and away from the winds of the sea. For over a century Cranberry Day has been the second Tuesday in October; and, as recent as the 1930s, it was a time to prepare for winter. Prior to the 1938 hurricane, the harvest was sold in New Bedford and the proceeds used to purchase the winter staples of molasses, sugar and flour. Extra money helped the elderly and the poor. The bogs were an important part of the economy, with harvesting taking up to three days. People would pitch tents, cook quahaug chowder over fires and at night a bonfire would be lit. Then people would tell stories, and there would be dancing to fiddle music.

“All the natives of Gay Head would travel in their ox-carts, carrying a lunch time feast of baked chicken, pies and all the fixings. At noon everyone would spread their lunches out in the bogs and different families would invite others to share their meal. The people would begin harvesting at dawn; originally, most of the harvesting was by hand. The cranberry scoop, as we know it, was not used yet. Some harvesting was done using a long handled box with metal teeth which was raked through the vines so you would not have to get down on your hands and knees.”

— Leonard Vanderhoop’s Cranberry Report