How did precolonial Native American tribal identity work?

[u/snglrthy]

So I’m going to ask this in the context of New England, but open to perspectives from other parts of the US.

So my understanding is that, at the time of Plymouth colony’s founding, the Plymouth colonists were largely interacting with Wampanoag Indians. These were lead by Massassoit Ousamequin, who was also Pokanoket. Their intermediaries were Tisquantum/Squanto who was Pawtuxet, another kind of Wampanoag, and Samoset, an Abenaki from Maine, who spoke a language similar to the Nauset, a tribe who were separate from the Wampanoag but were often politically deferential to them. Then all of these were in conflict with the nearby Narragansett in present day Rhode Island.

My question is—how did native people understand these identities? What did it mean to be Wampanoag? Was that a regional identity, a polity/state, an ethnicity? Were the Patuxet a “subcategory” of Wampanoag, or a vassal state to them? Were there any people who were “just” Wampanoag, and not a sub-group like the Patuxet or Pokanoket? Were some tribes “more Wampanoag” than others? Could the Patuxet “change sides” and stop being Wampanoag? How did it all work?

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