The leaders of the bands were sachems, who were wise men or women who acted as civil or village chiefs. They exercised considerable influence as long as they were competent leaders and were not domineering. A sachem typically made important decisions only after consulting with his or her counselors, who were the older, respected members of the band. Although the position of sachem was often hereditary, a leader's office was not guaranteed solely by birthright. Sachems had to respect the limits of the power granted to them, and a leader who was disliked by his village could be replaced by one of his or her siblings.

Through various rituals and ceremonies, the Algonquian natives recognized and showed respect to the supernatural powers / entities they believed inhabited all things in the universe. Everything was sacred and thus honored as a relative.

For example, hunters offered prayers and offerings / gifts to the guardian spirits of slain animals to insure future success. The Quinnipiac payed respect to spirits of the place known as the mandooak or guardian spirits of the sun / Kesukqand,  moon / Nanepomsha,  sea / Paumpagusett,  fire / Routag,  the four directions, four winds, etc.

The Quinnipiac Stone Giants played a central role in their lives, and were half human, half supernatural beings who were in actuality alter-egos of the same being, one was the hero, the other a mischevious trickster.  Their names were Hobbomock and Maushop.  The Creator was called was called Kiehtan (Cautantowit) meaning "the one who created all Things," and Kitchi Mandoo the "Great Spirit" presided over all creation.

Kiehtan was believed to be a benevolent spirit who dwelled somewhere to the southwest. After death the souls of both the good and the evil departed to Kiehtan's realm, where they enjoyed a life similar to their earthly existence.

Hobbomock and Maushop were the sons of Pinessi, the Thunderer who was Chief of the Sky-World. The evil spirit was personified by Gitaskuk or "Great Horned Serpent" who battled with Stone Giants constantly. In one tale Hobbomock chased Gitaskuk and tried to stomp him as it changed course. This is today known as the bend in the Connecticut River near Middletown.

Quinnipiac priests had a variety of burial customs. One way was to bury a person facing to the southwest facing the House of Keihtan in a sitting position and to build a small wooden house around it.

Food, hunting / war / spirit implements were buried as well and after a four day journey to the bridge that crosses over the Spirit Trail (Milky Way) and River of Souls and if they did not falter, they were welcomed by their ancestors and lived a life similar to their earthly eistence.

Religious Leaders

The Quinnipiac powwaus were Algonquian shamans and the religious leaders, some were also doctors who used herbal and spritual cures and were skilled in making splints and setting bones.

Powwaus also served their people by changing and predicting the weather and by providing supernatural guidance through the interpretation of dreams, which was a central part of native spiritual life. Some powwaus supposedly had other magic powers as well. One prestigious powwau (also a schem), was Passanconway, who was believed to be able to metamorphose himself into a flaming man. this act was part of the medicine society known as the Wabeno / Wampano or "men of dawnsky" who also juggled live coals in their hand and were thought to be impervious to fire. There were a total of sevn Algonquian medicine societies and three divisions of the powwau societies. each society had one public level and many other esoteric levels of sepcilaization.

Although the Quinnipiac natives were allies of the New Haven settlers, as a tribe they held to their own beliefs and rejected Christianity throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Not until 1725 did the settlers of the Connecticut Colony (which had absorbed the New Haven Colony in 1624) make a significant effort to convert the natives.

The English Puritans were essentially a Theocracy who set out to convert the Algonquians. their infamous Praying Towns (begun by Reverend John Elliot) were small indigenous villages in Massachusetts and Connecticut where local natives were forced to abandon "all things Indian" and live according to strict Theocracy mandates as "Red Puritans."

The Quinnipiac, however, resisted this religious conversion and rejected the wholesale abandonment of their spiritual ways in exchange for Puritan Christianity. this was true throughout the seventeenth century for a segment of Quinnipiac traditionalists and not until 1725 did the settlers of Connecticut Colony (which had incorporated New Haven Colony in 1654) make a significant effort to convert the natives. The Quinnipiac deities hand been transformed into boogeymen and "devils" by Puritan designation.

The Quinnipiac who migrated to Tunxis slowly adopted a less-restrictive form of Protestant faith and schooling. This group's descendants migrated to Brotherton at Oneida, New York and lived with refugees of other Algonquian and Iroquoian bands.

The primary dwelling of the New England natives was the wigwam or dome-shaped wetu also known as the round house. These were built by women who used a variety of materials, such as wood, sod, bark, and woven mats from  grasses and rushes.

The typical wigwam / wetu  was six to eight feet high and ten to sixteen feet in diameter at the base. This was large enough to house one or more inter-related families. In some cases a stone fireplace was placed in the center; a wicker mouth opening at the top allowed smoke to escape.

The lodges of the sachems were much bigger and had as many as five fireplaces. Ceremonial longhouses (quinnikommuk) and winter longhouses were constructed near inland forests to block high winds and shelter winterground habitats. Oak trees were selected for these winter lodge sites because acorns were a staple of wild turkeys, deer, and rabbits - which were the favorite meats for winter stews cooked in soapstone pots which retained the heat.

Animal skins were also used for clothing and as coverings on wigwams to retain heat. The Quinnipiac had to endure some severe winters, with the frost penetrating the ground up to four feet in depth.

Shamans sited the appearance of the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) to calculate the cycles of frost and frost free planting seasons using landmarks to line up on the eastern and western horizons at East and West Rock. Even as late as the nineteenth century, some of the Quinnipiac descendents continued to live, at least in the summer, in their wetus and in the Mattatuck-Meriden valley longhouses continued to be used as well according to the original history of Meriden. .

In times of peace, the most important occupation of the Quinnipiac was hunting and trapping for games animals and fishing for shellfish and scalefish. They used bows and arrows, spears, clubs, stones and spring poles, and traps, snares and pits, plus dams known as weirs, and nets.

Hunting and Trapping

They sold animal skins (such as beaver and otter) to traders who took advantage of the increasing demand of the fur markets in Western Europe. The skins not sold were used for clothing and or coverings for wetuash. The Quinnipiac diet consisted of the meat of animals (deer, moose, bear, rabbits)  and of fowl (wild turkey, ducks, geese, pigeons).

West Rock was a lookout point for Quinnipiac hunters who used arrum (wolf-dogs) to track deer and force them into v-shaped corrals with a river at the end where the hunters waited behind trees to shoot the deer. They did not harvest does or fawns.

Farming

Also, the women cultivated corn, their main agricultural product in the hills or rows, and in between these they planted beans and squash. During the harvest these "three sisters" were combined into a dish known as "succotash".

Fishing

From the rivers and harbor the Quinnipiacs harvested catches of scale fish and shellfish such as oysters, qouhog, scallops, snails, crabs, lobsters and mussels as well as seabass and the occasional whale.

The Long-Water-Land people also harvested eels (neeshuoag) during neeshuoag-keses (Eeel-Moon) in October during the New Moon by lighting torches at night and spearing them in large numbers. They also caught clams by treading their feet in the sand. The Quinnipiac women made lobster traps out of dried grapevines and interwoven splints of ash to  make long funnel like traps with pointed sticks facing inward. Hefty weirs (dams) made of river rocks and brush were constructed by the men to make vast catches. These vast piles of fish were placed in racks and smoked and dried.

Supplementing Their Diet

New England Algonquians supplemented their diet with a variety of wild plants. In the winter women gathered edible roots and nuts. In the summer wild berries and fruits which included plums, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries (called wotahomon or heart berry - a sacred fruit) and grapes. In autumn, walnuts, acorns, and chestnuts were dried and placed in storage until winter. Some were dried and placed in soups or stews, the acorn was mashed and made into a native baby formula. in the spring seven herbs and bark were made into the native rootbeer and sasparilla. The Quinnipiac held periodic feasts known as Nikomo.

Long-Water-Land History

Renapi traditions passed on through generations of culture-bearers indicate that the original Long-Water-Land was the Saint Lawrence Seaway and Saint Lawrence River Watershed in Canada. After the last glacial period (12,000 years ago) when the climate became warmer, four waves of Renapi bands migrated south along the Quinnenhtukqut (Connecticut River) and established otanash along both banks helping to spread the Reanpi language, culture, and traditions throughout the northeast woodlands. Traces of this archaic language have been found in almost every sub-region so it is assumed to be one of the dual parent groups of Algonquian existences. The Connecticut River runs from Quebec, Canada all the way to Long island Sound and lies at the core of the term "River Indians" used by John DeForest to describe the Wangunk and Quinnipiac, not just small rivers but the major confluences of the long tidal estuaries.

Exploration of The Long-Water-Land

The first to chart the coast of Long Island was Giovanni Verrazzano in 1524. First known European contact of the Quinnipiac tribe was made by Adrian Block. Block was a Dutch sea captain credited as the first European to have discovered Connecticut.

Navigating the Onrust along the Connecticut coast named the Long-Water-Land Rodenburg (after the twin whaleback blood red mountains East and West Rock) during his voyage up the Connecticut River in 1614 triggered sporadic trade between the merchants of Amsterdam and the Quinnipiac. Because the Quinnipiac tribe was well situated on the coast with an adequate harbor, they were one of the coastal tribes of Connecticut that profited from beaver trade with the Dutch.

The Journals of Johann deLeat, Director of the Dutch West India Trading Co. mention the Quiripey by name as the aboriginal inhabitants of Rodenburg and listed how many beaver and otter skins were purchased and how many gilders paid out.

The Pequotoog was a name given by the Quinnipiac and Wangunk to a bank of Mahicanoag who took advantage of the massive losses from the epidemics and pushed their way into eastern Connecticut. They pushed aside the Nehantic divinding them into the Eastern Nehantics and Western Nehantics and the Narragansett completely into the peninsula known today as Rhode Island. This name means "destroyers" not because they were so fierce but because they had destroyed ancient peace and traditional protocols of showing respect. This is the real meaning behind the term "tribute" but the English corrupted this like many other cultural issues of importance. They were never indigenous to Connecticut and came to the Long-Water-Land in the late 1600's after the Quinnipiac had made three treaties and were recognized as the indigenous inhabitants of Connecticut.

In Connecticut, the Quinnipiac otan at Dragon Bank (Fair Haven) is where the English first met the Long-Water-Land people. The Quinnipiac remained relatively unknown whereas the English had mistakenly misidentified their sub-nations as separate "tribes."

The Pequot, a warlike tribe whose name means "the destroyers," were neighbors of the Quinnipiac. In addition, the Mohawks of New York claimed land occupied by the Quinnipiacs. The Quinnipiac were frequent victims of marauding bands of both Pequot and Mohawks.

The Wangunk, a Quinnipiac Sub-nation (who at one time could muster a warrior force of 5,000 to 10,000 men from Mattabesec from within the Sachemdom) were mortal eneimes of the Pequotoog (Pequot). The Mattabesec Stronghold (Menunkenum) became the line of demarcation between the Long-Water-Land peopl and their enemies the Pequottog. Not long after the English occupied the region the Pequot were almost completely massacred for their treachery and even their name was forbidden to be spoken.

Three epidemics, triggered by the Europeans' arrival in the New World, ravaged the native population of Southern New England. In 1614 smallpox brought in by European explorers first hit the native population hard. Then in 1625 the first English settlers arrived in Wethersfield and in the winter and spring of 1633 - 34, both plague and small pox decimated the natives living near Windsor, Connecticut; the latter disease spread to Western Connecticut and to the Mohawks in New York.

Smallpox and other plagues decimated a majority of the Algonquians of the Long Island Sound Region. One estimate is that 77% of the inland natives and others how up to 80% in coastal locations were affected.

 Since Europeans had not settled in the Quinnipiac region at this time, historians have no statistics on the affect of the epidemics on the tribe. Since the neighboring tribes were all affected, however, we can surmise that the Quinnipiac were also stricken. By 1638 - 39 when the first three Quinnipiac - English Treaties were negotiated, there were roughly 300 survivors.

Prior to the epidemic, Mattabeses was the maweomi of the Long-Water-Land but after 80% of their populations were wiped out, the maweomi were relocated along the banks of the Quinnipiac River.

In August, 1637, an exploring party bound for Quinnipiac lead by a wealthy English Puritan named Theophilus Eaton , arrived at the harbor to settle permanently on the Long-Water-Land, after leaving Boston. Eaton left seven men to winter at Quinnipiac Otan on the Quinnipiac River confluence with New Haven Harbor. When he returned John Davenport and Eaton led a company of 500 followers on April 24, 1638 who arrived at the harbor in the ship named Hector.

Eaton had been attracted by the adequate harbor, the supply of timber, cold springs for drinking water, open meadows cleared by the natives, abundant shell fish, a park like quality of the Quinnipiac camps and the friendly natives. The Quinnipiac were also eager to form an alliance with the English as their own numbers had dwindled to 47 fighting men and 460 persons in the region of the maweomi.

Attacks by enemy tribes and epidemics had weakened the Quinnipiac natives to such an extent that they were eager to form an alliance with the English. The Quinnipiacs welcomed the English as military allies and provided the exploring party with furs and food during the first winter. The Quinnipiac also instructed the English in hunting, trapping, fishing, and planting.

The Long-Water-Land country was claimed by right of the Cabot discovery. Also, the area fell within the grant made by the Earl of Warwick to friends of Davenport and Eaton. But since the English lacked a title they felt obliged to negotiate a series of treaties with the Quinnipiac as the aboriginal inhabitants of the region.

 The first and most crucial treaty was signed on November 24, 1638. John Davenport and Theophilus Eaton represented the colonists. The tribe was represented by Grand Sachem Momauguin who ceded 10 miles by 16 miles of land centered on the Quinnipiac River confluence with the harbor. Mantowese next ceded 10 miles by 13 miles of land due north of the first tract in the second treaty. Then Shaumpishuh and Reverend Henry Whitfield negotiated a third area ceding lands between Madison and Guilford with the aid of Quosoquanch as a map was fashioned, in the third Treaty.

The English provided gifts (twelve coats of English trading cloth, twelve "alchemy spoons," twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen knives, twelve porringers and four cases of French knives and scissors) which the natives saw as the requisite form of tribute, not as payment for the land and gave gifts of wampum in return to solidify  the Treaties. The English agreed to let the Quinnipiac hunt over their lands as before, and reserved a tract of land exclusively for the Quinnipiac on the east side of the harbor. This 1,200 acre reservation was for cultivation of native crops.

The English also pledged to aid the natives in defending themselves from "wrong or harm."

Both parties agreed not to attack each other and to make reparation if any injury should ever occur between them. Although the Quinnipiac numbers had dwindled they agreed not to admit any others to the nation without prior notification.

During the early years of New Haven, the Quinnipiacs traded deer meat to the colonists, who were unskilled in hunting. In imitation of the Indians, the English built weirs (dams)to catch fish. The Quinnipiacs served as guides, messengers, traded canoes, killed wolves that preyed on livestock, and taught the whites how to fish and clam.

As the Long-Water-Land nation grew smaller, the English settlement expanded and consumed the nearby forests and other natural resources in its wake. The Quinnipiac did not foresee this, since they supposed that their neighbors would cultivate little land and support themselves by trading, fishing and hunting. John DeForest remarks that if the Quinnipiac could have anticipated the coming events, "They would have preferred the wampum tributes .... and the scalping parties ...., to the vicinity of a people so kind, so peaceful and yet so destructive. 

By October, 1639, the colonists began apprehending alleged criminals resulting from clashes between the Puritans and the Quinnipiac. The historical account of one of the trials sheds light on how the English and the Quinnipiac dealt with incidents of the outbreaks. A Quinnipiac named Nepaupuck was accused of murdering some English settlers. At first he claimed mistaken identity but then the Sachems and Sagamores decided to honor the Treaty provisions of not doing each other harm and had to abandon him. So Nepaupuck finally confessed that he was a Mugwomp War-Captain.

The trail lasted one day and taking into account his admission and the rule of the Mosaic law ("He that sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed"), the court  ordered him to burn at the state. Since fire was sacred as the court so noted "the fire was sacred and God was angry with him, therefore he would not fall into God's Hands."

Nepaupuck placed his neck on a stump to show the method he chose. The next day his head was cut off and pitched on a pole in the market place (just as skulls of criminals were displayed on London Bridge back in England. So, in the end the tradition of beheading being an ancient Algonquian tradition reserved for warriors, unbeknownst to the Puritans, Nepaupuck at least gave his life up the traditional way. the Quinnipiacs considered these conflicts acts of war and resistence to Puritan encroachments but the English treated them as acts of murder. There were a total of fifteen (15) capital crimes listed in New Haven at the time and one was blasphemy.

Although the treaties were honored by both parties, there were conflicts. For example, in 1657, the tribe petitioned the townspeople to acquire some English land near Oyster Point. The natives claimed that they had not been allotted enough land for cultivation on the east side of the river. The matter was referred to the Particular Court, which gave permission to the town to allow the Quinnipiac new land with several conditions set forth, one of them being that the natives were to kill their dogs because "some of them had done much mischief already." The tribe decided against killing their dogs and were refused additional land by the English.

The native uprising known as King Philip's War (Metacom's Revolt) broke out in June, 1675. King Philip was the son of Massasoit, Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy who led a powerful revolt of Algonquians against the Puritan colonists after they had made continual encroachments on native lands and resources.

News reached New Haven in July, 1675 that uprisings had occurred at Plymouth and Swansy, so the town began to prepare for war.

The Quinnipiac again decided that they could not fight against the English or they would be in violation of the Treaties. So, Quinnipiac warriors had to be part of the troops fighting with their allies the English, and when war was formally declared against the Narragansett on November 2, 1675 by the United Colonies of New England sides were drawn.

Troops consisted of 350 white men and 150 Indians (half were Mohegan and half were Quinnipiac). In December, 1675, the Connecticut force joined troops from Massachusetts and Plymouth, and attacked the Narragansett fort in the swamps of South Kingston, Rhode Island during a winter storm. After a long and bloody battle called the "The Direful Swamp Fight," the Connecticut force suffered the greatest loss as they had been assigned to protect the rear guard. The New Haven force lost 21 white men and a total of 300 natives, 100 of which perished either during the battle or later from their wounds or the weather.

After the force's returned to New Haven, the colonists completed construction of fortifications around the nine block town square, which they had begun a few months earlier. Despite the fact that the Quinnipiac had honored their Treaty obligations and fought valiantly to defend their neighbors it was ordered that "no Indian be suffered to come into the town to see the fortifications or take notice of any of our acts..." This turned into animosity between the Quinnipiac and Puritans and relations continued to deteriorate.

Between the years 1680 and 1750 the tribe's population dwindled. In addition to major losses suffered during King Philip's War, Quinnipiac warriors were lost in the Canadian War of 1690 and the Louisburg expedition of 1745. In the Revolutionary War - Quinnipiac Men, who had become part of the Stockbridge Massachusetts refugium and Missionary enclave fought as part of a native army to assist George Washington and the Sons of Liberty that brutal winter by bringing them food and defending their flanks at the Battle of White Plains and the Battle of Breeds (Bunker) Hill.

Quinnipiac soldiers also fought in the English wars against West Indies, where many of them died in battle. Pequotoog captives had been sent there as salves to work in the English Sugar Plantations. Many Quinnipiac soldiers died from disease or wounds in that battle.

In 1695 the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut granted the town of New Haven the right to sell the Quinnipiac's land and appointed a Proprietor's Committee to oversee the transactions. The remaining Quinnipiac lands began to be sold off which had reversed a 1639 court holding that all purchases of Quinnipiac land could be used only as town property. As a result the Long-Water-Land people were scattered about and relocated throughout the region.

The tribe however did not go extinct. It still exists to day as the Algonquian Confederacy of the Quinnipiac Council.

Folklore and Landmarks

The three most venerated landmarks of the Quinnipiac are East Rock, West Rock, and a local ridge formation now known as Sleeping Giant. In fact all of the mountains flanking the Quinnipiac maweomi otan along the banks of the Quinnipiac River and Long Island Sound were known as a dwelling place for their spirits.

One legend describes how the evil spirit Hobbomock, angry at his people's neglect, changed the course of the Connecticut River from Quinnipiack territory to the east. He did so by stomping his foot in what is now called Middletown, Connecticut. Kiehtan, spirit of good, cast a sleeping spell on Hobbamock, turning him into the Sleeping Giant. Hobbamock was said to be overly fond of oysters. He was used as a 'bogeyman' by which Quinnipiack mothers frightened their children into submission.

The Stone Giants, Great Beaver, the Little People, and dozens of other entities with their antics and legends are still being told by descendents of the Quinnipiac.

The Quinnipiac are the hereditary Gechannawitank ( Aboriginal Land Stewards and Guardians of Scared Landmarks) as well as the confluence of their primary watersheds at the Connecticut River, Quinnipiac River, and Housatonic River. These estuaries and their water trails are being carefully defended by them.