The Assateague (meaning: "swifly moving water") were an Algonquian people speaking the Nanticoke language who historically lived on the Atlantic coast side of the Delmarva Peninsula (known during the colonial period as the Eastern Shores of Maryland and Virginia, and the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania). While there are living people who may have distant heritage from this tribe, the tribe itself no longer exists as a culturally intact tribal community. Culture The Indigenous Assateague culture was based on the maritime and forest resources of the Chincoteague Bay watershed and, among other things, involved the manufacture and trade of shell beads. Historically, the Assateague practiced excarnation as part of their funerary rites. This involved the eventual storing of ancestors' bones on shelves in a log structure. Periodically, the remains were collected and buried in a common grave or ossuary. Several ossuaries have been discovered on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Historical relations with Europeans Treaty of 1662 In 1662, the English colony of Maryland made a treaty with the Assateagues (and the Nanticokes) whereby each colonist given land in the territory of the Assateagues would give the Assateague tribal chief (or "emperor", as he was inaccurately referred to by the colonists) six matchcoats (garments made of a rough blanket or frieze, heavy rough cloth with uncut nap on one side), and one matchcoat for every runaway slave the Assateague returned to their enslaver. The treaty further stated that no murders were to be committed by either side, that no English colonist was to enter Assateague territory without a pass, and that the Assateagues were not to trade with Dutch colonists in Delaware, as long as Maryland could supply their necessities. Of several other treaties signed between the colonial government and the Assateagues before the close of the 17th century, one ordered the Assateagues onto five reservations along the Pocomoke River, and was signed by Amonugus, as Emperor of the "Assateagues". Apparently, based on signatures to a 1678 treaty, the "Emperor of the Assateagues" held a dominant position over the chiefs (or "kings", as subordinate to the "emperor") of the Chincoteague and Pocomoke tribes. Sessions of the Maryland General Assembly during this period record numerous complaints by the Assateague against colonists letting their cattle roam Assateague cornfields, breaking Assateague wild animal traps, cutting their timber, and encroaching on their lands. The Assateagues complained in 1686 that several colonists had even built homes