The Pamunkey Indian Tribe is one of 11 Virginia Indian tribal governments recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the state's first federally recognized tribe, receiving its status in January 2016. Six other Virginia tribal governments, the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond, were similarly recognized through the passage of the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act of 2017 on January 12, 2018. The historical people were part of the Powhatan paramountcy, made up of Algonquian-speaking nations. The Powhatan paramount chiefdom was made up of over 30 nations, estimated to total about 10,000–15,000 people at the time the English arrived in 1607. The Pamunkey nation made up about one-tenth to one-fifteenth of the total, as they numbered about 1,000 persons in 1607. When the English arrived, the Pamunkey were one of the most powerful groups of the Powhatan chiefdom. They inhabited the coastal tidewater of Virginia on the north side of the James River near Chesapeake Bay. The Pamunkey Tribe is one of only two that retain the reservation lands assigned by the 1646 and 1677 treaties with the English colonial government. The Pamunkey reservation is located on some of its ancestral land on the Pamunkey River adjacent to present-day King William County, Virginia. The Mattaponi reservation, the only other in the state, is nearby on the Mattaponi River. Language The Pamunkey language is generally assumed to have been Algonquian, but only fourteen words have been preserved, not enough to determine that the language actually was Algonquian. The words, which were recorded in 1844 by Reverend E.A. Dalrymple S.T.D., are, tonshee 'son', nucksee 'daughter', petucka 'cat', kayyo 'thankfulness', o-ma-yah 'O my Lord', kenaanee 'friendship', baskonee 'thank you', eeskut 'go out dog', nikkut 'one', orijak 'two', kiketock 'three', mitture 'four', nahnkitty 'five', vomtally 'six', talliko 'seven', tingdum 'eight', yantay 'ten'. Except for nikkut 'one', which is clearly similar to Powhatan nekut, none of the words correspond to any known Algonquian language, or to reconstructions of proto-Algonquian. Given the extensive ethnic mixing that occurred among the Pamunkey before 1844, it's possible that Dalrymple's list is from an inter-ethnic pidgin or even a language from an otherwise unknown language family, rather than from the original Pamunkey language. Way of living Subsistence and relationship to the land The traditional Pamunkey way of life was subsistence living. They lived through a combination of