Grave Undertakings: An Archaeology of Roger Williams and the Narragansett Indians

Grave Undertakings focuses on seventeenth-century Narragansett Indians, whose languages and lifeways were described by Roger Williams in A Key Into the Language of America (1643) , long considered an objective, thorough, and authoritative account. By weaving textual and archaeological evidence with community memory, Patricia Rubertone challenges the canonical status of A Key, imagining a more complicated and dynamic history of Native cultural survival and persistence in New England. Rubetone provides a much-needed context and critical reading of William's life and myths, and explores the limits of A Key. Using archaeological evidence from a seventeenth-century Narragansett burial ground, Rubertone shows how material objects, including many European goods, were imprinted with Native meanings of communal and generational relationships, learned social knowledge, and sacred traditions. Her analysis illuminates individual lives within the society and makes clear that burial places and practices continued to be central to the Narragansetts long after the seventeenth century. Grave Undertakings provides a compelling portrayal of the colonial experiences of a Native people, demonstrating that anthropologically informed cultural translations of the historical past are possible and necessary in the twenty-first century.