Winganuske is known to have been the favorite wife of Mamanatowick Wahunsenacawh, better known as Paramount Chief Powhatan, and is believed to be the mother of his daughters Pocahontas and Cleopatra. Documented in 1611 by Englishman William Strachey to be Powhatan's favorite wife, as relayed to him by her brother Machumps. Her name is sometimes spelled Winanuske, however Strachey spelled it Winganuske. Very little information about her is known with certainty. Her exact date of birth is not known but it is estimated that she was born about 1570, in the Patawomeck head village. Winganuske's parents are believed to be The Great King of the Patawomeck and Wahunsenacawh's oldest sister (neither of their names are known), making Winganuske Powhatan's niece as well as his wife. The Powhatan Tribes were a matrilineal society, with leadership of the tribe inherited through the mother. Wahunsenacawh's own successors were named as: Opitchapam, Opechancanough, Kekataugh, his 2 sisters (all from the same 'Royal" mother) and his sisters daughters. If he wished his own children to be eligible to succeed to the Paramountcy someday, they also had to descend from this same female bloodline, thus he married his niece. Winganuske was not simply his favorite wife out of fondness but because she was the most highly esteemed because of her social position and her bloodline. A bloodline passed on to her own daughters Pocahontas and Cleopatra. The names and number of her children were never recorded. It is not known exactly when Winganuske was born or when she died. The Powhatan Indians did not keep written records and William Strachey's records are one of the few (possibly only) English records known to mention her. Her date of death is also not known but was sometime after 1611, when Strachey recorded she was traveling with Powhatan and had a 'young one' by him. Many believe she is buried near her husband, Wahunsenacawh, at what is now the Pamunkey Indian Reservation, located in King William County, Virginia, in the United States, however, she has no known grave marker. This is not unusual for the Powhatan Indians, grave markers are an English tradition. Because of her relationship as the mother of Pocahontas, Winganuske has been the subject of MANY falsified genealogical records. Her only recorded name is Winganustke.