Mashalisk the Old Woman, Mother of Wuttawwalun
(1591-1676)

Mashalisk was a Pocumtuck woman who lived on the east side of Pemawatchuwatunck (the Pocumtuck Range), near the Connecticut River in present-day Deerfield, Massachusetts. Mashalisk signed several land deeds, so she was probably a sunksqua, a Native woman who is a sachem (chief). She was one of many sachems who tried to have productive trade with English traders while keeping traditional lifeways and territory. Sometimes, Native men would trade for goods and promise to pay later in beaver furs. When beavers became scarce many Native men could not pay their debts. This may have happened to Mashalisk's son, Wattawwaluncksin. In 1672 Mashalisk signed a deed giving land to Springfield trader John Pynchon (1626-1703). The land was in exchange for erasing her family's debt of ten large beavers and also for receiving from Pynchon sixty fada of wampum, two coats, cotton, and other small things.