Connecticut Water Trails Association
|
|
|---|
|
Connecticut Water Trails Association |
|
Connecticut Water Trails Program
History Of Connecticut's Water Trails
Native Americans
The
Mahican
The general term "Mohican" has been used to refer
not only to the Mahicans and their kin the Wappingers, but also to six
or seven other Indian tribes lumped together as Mohegans by early
colonists. The confusion between these eastern tribes was worsened by
James Fenimore Cooper's book "Last of the Mohicans," which incorrectly
merged the Mahicans and Mohegans into a single, extinct Mohican tribe.
It includes some cultural aspects of the Mohegans.
The novel takes place in the Hudson Valley, Mahican land, but some
characters' names, such as Uncas, are Mohegan.
In reality the Mahicans and Mohegans have never been
the same tribe, and neither group is extinct. (Cooper may have been
thinking of the Wappingers, who really had been destroyed as a distinct
people by the time he wrote his book--the survivors were mostly absorbed
into the Mahican tribe, where their descendents remain today.)
Location
The northwestern corner of Litchfield County was occupied by the Wawyachtonoc, a tribe of the Mahican Confederacy of the upper Hudson. The original Mahican homeland was the Hudson River Valley from the Catskill Mountains north to the southern end of Lake Champlain. Bounded by the Schoharie River in the west, it extended east to the crest of the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachusetts from northwest Connecticut north to the Green Mountains in southern Vermont. Also the lower Connecticut River
Name
Both the names Mahican and Mohican are correct, but
NOT Mohegan, a different tribe in eastern Connecticut who were related
to the Pequot. In their own language, the Mahican referred to themselves
collectively as the "Muhhekunneuw" "people of the great river." This
name apparently was difficult for the Dutch to pronounce, so they
settled on "Manhigan," the Mahican word for wolf and the name of one
their most important clans. Variations were: Maeykan, Mahigan,
Mahikander, Mahinganak, Maikan, and Mawhickon. In later years, the
English altered this into the more-familiar Mahican or Mohican. The
French name for the Mahican was Loup (French for wolf) and followed a
similar reasoning. Their current name is the name applied to the Wolf
Clan division of the tribe, from the Mahican manhigan. The similarity
between their names is due to coincidence and European mispronunciation
"Mahican" comes from the word Muheconneok, "from the
waters that are never still" (the Hudson River), and "Mohegan" comes
from the word Mahiingan, "wolf."
The two Algonkian languages Mahican and Mohegan are
related and have similar-sounding names, but they are linguistically
distinct from each other, like Spanish and Italian. A third language,
Narragansett, may have been distinct or may have been a dialect of
Mohegan or Massachusett. The language spoken by the Wappinger tribe is
considered a Mohican dialect by many linguists, but it may have been
more closely related to Lenape. Unfortunately the point is moot, for
none of these languages has been spoken since the early 20th century
Sub Nations
Divisions: Mahican, Mechkentowoon, Wawyachtonoc,
Westenhuck, and Wiekagjoc.
Connecticut Village Locations
The name of (another tribe) indicates the village
had a mixed population. Aepjin's Castle - Chaghnet (Chugnut) (Iroquois) - Hoosac (Hoosick) (Abenaki) - Horicon (Horikan) - Housatonic - Scatacook, Scaticook, Shachcook, Skachcook - NOT to
be confused with the Schaghticoke in Connecticut
Because they include all Algonquin tribes between
the Hudson and Connecticut Rivers, some estimates of the Mahican
population in 1600 range as high as 35,000. However, when limited to the
core tribes of the Mahican confederacy near Albany, New York, it was
somewhere around 8,000. By 1672 this had fallen to around 1,000. At the
lowpoint in 1796, 300 Stockbridge, the "Last of the Mohicans," were
living with the Oneida and Brotherton in upstate New York. Today there
are about 3000 Mahican Indians in Wisconsin, where they were forced to
emigrate, and many Mahican descendents scattered throughout New England.
When James Fenimore Cooper wrote "Last of the
Mohicans" in 1826, he made the Mahican famous. Unfortunately, he also
made them extinct in the minds of many people and also confused their
name and history with the Mohegan from eastern Connecticut.
Unfortunately, this misconception has persisted, and most Americans
today would be surprised to learn the Mahican are very much alive and
living in Wisconsin under an assumed name ...Stockbridge Indians. With a
similar language and name, the Mahican (Mohican) and the Mohegan may
have been members of the same tribe before contact. The Mohegan,
however, migrated east as part of the Pequot and settled in eastern
Connecticut sometime around 1500, while the Mahican stayed in the Hudson
Valley. Afterwards, these two tribes followed separate paths.
Although culturally similar to other woodland
Algonquin, the Mahican were shaped by their constant warfare with the
neighboring Iroquois. Politically, the Mahican were a confederacy of
five tribes with as many 40 villages. In keeping with other eastern
Algonquin, civil authority was not strong. Mahican villages were
governed by hereditary sachems (matrilineal descent) advised by a
council of the clan leaders. The Mahican had three clans: bear, wolf,
and turtle. However, warfare required a higher degree of organization. A
general council of sachems met regularly at their capital of Shodac
(east of present-day Albany) to decide important matters affecting the
entire confederacy. In times of war, the Mahican council passed its
authority to a war chief chosen for his proven ability. For the duration
of the conflict, the war leader exercised almost dictatorial power.
The Mahicans chose to place their villages on hilltops, near rivers. Each village was about 200 people, or so data suggests. Within the villages were bark covered longhouses. In the longhouses were about three fireplaces. This could supply heat for about three nuclear families. As one could assume, houses of chiefs tended to be larger. They contained decorative art because sometimes these longhouses were used for ceremonies, and such. It is suggested that about every 8-12 years the villages would change location. This was due to the exhaustion of the nearby garden plots, a shortage of firewood, and the increasing filth in and around the village.
Around the village, gardens were constructed.
Although they were usually small in size, they produced large
quantities of maize, beans, squash, and sunflowers. While the men
paddled dugouts and bark canoes or fished, the women spent their time
gathering food from the garden and nearby forests.
During the winter months, families would leave to hunt in the
specified territories.
Bows, arrows, spears and traps were used in hunting.
This provided the families with food and skin for clothing.
Mahican villages were fairly large. Usually consisting of 20 to 30 mid-sized longhouses, they were located on hills and heavily fortified. Large cornfields were located nearby. Agriculture provided most of their diet but was supplemented by game, fish, and wild foods. For reasons of safety, the Mahican did to move to scattered hunting camps during the winter like other Algonquin and usually spent the colder months inside their "castles" (fortified villages). Copper, gotten from the Great Lakes through trade, was used extensively for ornaments and some of their arrowheads. Once they began trade with the Dutch, the Mahican abandoned many of their traditional weapons and quickly became very expert with their new firearms. Contrary to the usual stereotype, most Mahican warriors were deadly marksmen.
Government
The Mahican Tribe is a confederation of five tribes contained in forty villages. The five tribes that make up the confederation are the Mahican’s, the Mechkentowoon, the Wawyachtonoc, the Westenhuck and the Weikagjoc. These tribes and villages are governed by hereditary decent, mainly, matrilineal decent. There are three clans with in the system, the bear, and wolf and turtle clans. A council of these clan leaders heads the villages. However, in time of war, the Mahican council passes all authority over to a war chief that has been chosen for his proven ability with in the village, tribes and clans. This chosen leader has the power of a dictator, and holds this until the war, or the reason he was selected Chief, is over. A more common aspect of the Mahican government is the Hero. Heroes were men elected to assist in the Chief's activities because of exceptional courage and persistence in war. The Heroes executed the calls for war and when peace came about put their power back into the power of the clan’s. The final aspect of the Mahican Tribe government was the Office of the Owl. This position was given to a man with exceptional speaking abilities and a strong memory. He sat beside the Chief and proclaimed the Chief’s orders to the rest of the tribes.
The Mahicans, or Mohicans, were original natives of
what is now New York State, along the banks of the Hudson River. Like
most Indian tribes of New England, the Mohicans were devastated by
warfare and European diseases during the early colonial period, then
forced to leave their homelands by Dutch and British expansion. Some
Mohicans sought refuge with neighboring tribes, including the Lenape and
the Iroquois, but most resettled in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where
they came to be known as the Stockbridge Indian tribe. Soon the
Stockbridge Mohicans were deported once again to Wisconsin, where they
joined the Munsee Indians on a jointly held reservation. The Munsee and
Mohican tribes remain together there to this day.
The Mahicans were living in and around the Hudson
Valley at the time of their first contact with Europeans in 1609. Over
the next hundred years, tensions between the Mahicans and the Mohawks as
well as the Europeans caused the Mahicans to migrate eastward into
western Massachusetts and Connecticut to the Hudson River. Many settled
in the town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts becoming known as the
Stockbridge Indians.
When the Mahican-Mohawk war ended in 1628, the Dutch
accepted the outcome, and the Mohawk became their dominant trading
partner. The peace not only bound the Mohawk and Mahican into an
alliance but required the Mahican to pay an annual tribute of wampum to
the Iroquois. The Dutch had become aware in 1623 of the value which
natives placed on wampum from their dealings with the Pequot along the
Connecticut River. Soon afterwards, they began accepting it as a medium
of exchange in the fur trade which greatly increased its value. Using
the wampum they were receiving from the Mahican, the Mohawk could
purchase many of things they needed from the Dutch, but to continue to
dominate the fur trade, they still needed to find new sources of beaver.
For this reason, the Mohawk, after they made peace with the Mahican in
1628, continued their wars against the Mahican allies in western New
England: Pennacook, Pocumtuc, and Sokoki (western Abenaki).
When the English traders along the Connecticut
River, tried to lure the Mohawk away from the Dutch with offers of
firearms in 1640, the Dutch reacted by providing guns and ammunition to
the Iroquois and Mahican in any amount they wanted. While a brutal war
raged to the north along the St. Lawrence between the Dutch supplied
Iroquois League and the French allied Huron and Algonkin, the Mohawk and
Mahican along the Hudson were at peace with each other. However, both
tribes had become very heavily-armed compared to the Wappinger and other
tribes on the lower river. The Dutch were unable to prevent either tribe
from using their new weapons against neighboring tribes. The European
presence in the Hudson Valley had also introduced a series of new
epidemics which further destabilized the situation. Smallpox started in
New England and devastated the native population during 1634. Measles,
influenza, typhus, and a host of other diseases took a similar toll. To
maintain their dominant position in the trade with the Dutch, the
Mahican and Mohawk needed additional hunting territory, but they had
been hit as heavily as anyone else (perhaps moreso) and were forced to
compensate for the fall in their populations by cooperating in warfare.
After years of fighting, the Mahican and Mohawk had acquired a great
respect for each other as warriors, and by 1642 they were forming joint
war parties against the Sokoki and Montagnais. Despite military
successes and territorial gains, beaver fur was becoming increasingly
difficult to find, but the Dutch were also accepting wampum as payment.
The Narragansett sachem Miontonimo, accompanied by
100 of his warriors, had visited the Metoac villages on Long Island that
summer to recruit allies for a war against the Mohegan in Connecticut,
Governor Kieft and the other Dutch became suspicious that a general
uprising was being planned against themselves and the English. Ignoring
the advice of his council, Kieft decided to exterminate the Wecquaesgeek
to set an example to the other Wilden (wild men) near Manhattan.
During the winter of 1676, the Mahican were also
instrumental in providing a sanctuary at their village of Schaghticoke
on the Hudson River for 250 refugees from the King Philip's War
(1675-76). Others followed, and by 1700 the number of refugees at
Schaghticoke had grown to more to 1,000.
However, the Mahican had more difficulty protecting
themselves and their lands from the colonists of New England and New
York. Settlement of the upper Housatonic began shortly after the King
Philip's War. In the Hudson Valley, the Mahican sold their lands west of
the river to the Van Rensselaer Manoi in 1680, and seven years later,
they parted with even more. Sales of other lands along the Hudson were
also made to Robert Livingston in 1683 and 1685 followed by the
surrender of their claims in northwest Connecticut. Whites usually took
the lands in between these tracts which were sold without purchase. Even
as they continued to absorb members of the Wappinger and Mattabesic,
smallpox during 1690 reduced the Mahican to less than 800 (10% of their
original number). During the King William's War (1689-96) between
Britain and France, the Mohawk were dispersed during 1693 by French
attacks on their homeland. Faced with a possible French invasion from
Canada, the governor of New York recruited Mahican, Wappinger, and
Munsee warriors to stem the tide. The Mohawk are said to have lost half
of their warriors in this conflict, but two-thirds of the Mahican and
Wappinger who entered British service never returned.
As their land and number dwindled, the Mahican began to scatter, and by 1740 most had disappeared from the Hudson Valley. Although only 16,000 acres of their original reservation remains today, the "Last of the Mahicans" are still there and very much alive.
|
||||||||||||||
 |
|
