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Mohegan

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, seeMohegan (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with theMohicansorMohawk,different Native American tribes.
Mohegan Indian Tribe
Total population
1,300
Regions with significant populations
Mohegan Indian Reservation,Connecticut,United States
Languages
English,originallyMohegan-Pequot language
Religion
Mohegan spirituality,Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Pequots
Lester Skeesuk, a Narraganset-Mohegan, in traditional regalia

TheMoheganare anAlgonquianNative American tribe historically based in present-dayConnecticut.Today the majority of the people are associated with theMohegan Indian Tribe,a federally recognized tribe living on a reservation in the eastern upperThames Rivervalley of south-central Connecticut.[1]It is one of twofederally recognized tribesin the state, the other being theMashantucket Pequot,whose reservation is inLedyard, Connecticut.There are also threestate-recognized tribes:theSchaghticoke,Paugusett,andEastern Pequot.

At the time of European contact, the Mohegan andPequotwere a unified tribal entity living in the southeastern Connecticut region, but the Mohegan gradually became independent as the hegemonic Pequot lost control over their trading empire and tributary groups. The name Pequot was given to the Mohegan by other tribes throughout the northeast and was eventually adopted by themselves. In 1637, EnglishPuritancolonists destroyed a principal fortified village atMistickwith the help of theirsachemUncas,the Christian convert andsagamoreWequash Cooke,and theNarragansettsduring thePequot War.This ended with the death of Uncas' cousinSassacusnear Albany, New York, where he had fled,[2]at the hands of theMohawk,anIroquois Confederacynation from west of theHudson River.Thereafter, the Mohegan became a separate tribal nation under the leadership of Uncas.[1][3]Uncasis a variant anglicized spelling of the Algonquian nameWonkus,which translates to "fox" in English. The wordMohegan(pronounced/ˈmoʊhiːɡæn/) translates in their respectiveAlgonquindialects(Mohegan-Pequot language) as "People of the Wolf".[4][5]

Over time, the Mohegan gradually lost ownership of much of their tribal lands. In 1978, Chief Rolling Cloud Hamilton petitioned for federal recognition of the Mohegan. Descendants of his Mohegan band operate independently of the federally recognized nation.

In 1994, a majority group of Mohegan gained federal recognition as the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut (MTIC).[6]They have been defined by the United States government as the "successor in interest to theaboriginalentity known as the Mohegan Indian Tribe. "[7]The United States took land into trust the same year, under an act of Congress to serve as a reservation for the tribe.

Most of the Mohegan people in Connecticut today live on theMohegan Reservationat41°28′42″N72°04′55″W/ 41.47833°N 72.08194°W/41.47833; -72.08194nearUncasvillein the Town ofMontville,New London County.The MTIC operate theMohegan SunCasino on their reservation in Uncasville and theMohegan Pennsylvaniaracetrack and casino nearWilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

History[edit]

The Mohegan Indian Tribe was historically based in central southern Connecticut, originally part of thePequot people.It gradually became independent and served as allies ofEnglish colonistsin thePequot Warof 1636, which broke the power of the formerly dominant Pequot tribe in the region. In reward, the Colonists gave Pequot captives to the Mohegan tribe.

The Mohegan homelands in Connecticut include landmarks such as Trading Cove on the Thames River, Cochegan Rock, Fort Shantok, and Mohegan Hill, where the Mohegan founded a Congregational church in the early 1800s. In 1931, the Tantaquidgeon family built the Tantaquidgeon Indian Museum on Mohegan Hill to house tribal artifacts and histories.Gladys Tantaquidgeon(1899–2005) served for years as the Tribe'smedicine womanand unofficial historian. She studied anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for a decade with theBureau of Indian Affairs.Returning to Connecticut, she operated this museum for six decades.[8]It was one of the first museums to be owned and operated by American Indians.[9]

In 1933, John E. Hamilton[10][11](Chief Rolling Cloud) was appointed as a Grand Sachem by his mother Alice Storey through a traditional selection process based on heredity. She was a direct descendant ofUncasand of Tamaquashad, Sachem of the Pequot tribe. In Mohegan tradition, the position of tribal leadership was often hereditary through the maternal line.

Land claims and federal recognition[edit]

In the 1960s, during a period of rising activism among Native Americans, John Hamilton filed a number of land claims authorized by the "Council of Descendants of Mohegan Indians." The group had some 300 members at the time. In 1970 the Montville band of Mohegans expressed its dissatisfaction with land-claims litigation. When the Hamilton supporters left the meeting, this band electedCourtland Fowleras their new leader. Notes of that Council meeting referred to Hamilton asSachem.[12]

The group led by John Hamilton (although opposed by the Fowlers) worked with the attorney Jerome Griner in federal land claims through the 1970s. During this time, aKent, Connecticut,property owners' organization, with some Native and non-Native members, worked to oppose the Hamilton land claims and the recognition petition for federal recognition, out of fear that tribal nations would take private properties.

In 1978, in response to the desires of tribal nations across the country to gain federal recognition and recover tribal sovereignty, theBureau of Indian Affairs(BIA) established a formal administrative process. The process included specific criteria that BIA officials would judge as evidence of cultural continuity. In that same year, Hamilton's band submitted a petition for federal recognition for the Mohegan tribe.

The petition process stalled when John Hamilton died in 1988. The petition for federal recognition was revived in 1989, but the BIA's preliminary finding was that the Mohegan had not satisfied the criteria of documenting continuity in social community, and political authority and influence as a tribe through the twentieth century.

In 1990, the Mohegan band led by Chief Courtland Fowler submitted a detailed response to meet the BIA's concerns. The tribe included compiled genealogies and other records, including records pertaining to the MoheganCongregational Churchin Montville. BIA researchers used records provided by the Hamilton band, records from the Mohegan Church, and records maintained byGladys Tantaquidgeon,who had kept genealogy and vital statistics of tribal members for her anthropological research.[8][13]

In 1990, the Fowler group, identifying as theMohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut(MTIC), decided that the tribe's membership would be restricted to documented descendants from a single family group, ca. 1860. This criterion excludes some of the Hamilton followers. By law, a Federally recognized tribe has the authority to determine its own rules for membership. The MTIC unsuccessfully attempted to stop other Mohegan people from using "Mohegan" as their tribal identity, in public records and in craftwork.[14]

In its 1994 "Final Determination", the BIA cited the vital statistics and genealogies as documents that were decisive in demonstrating "that the tribe did indeed have social and political continuity during the middle of the 20th century."[15]As a result, theMohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut(MTIC) gained recognition as a sovereign tribal nation.

That same year, Congress passed the Mohegan Nation (Connecticut) Land Claim Settlement Act, which authorized the United States to take land into trust to establish a reservation for the Mohegan and settle their land claim. The final 1994 agreement between MTIC and the State in the settlement of land claims extinguished all pending land claims.[15]The MTIC adopted a writtenconstitution.MTIC is governed by a chief, an elected chairman and an elected tribal council, all of whom serve for specific terms.

The Mohegan people associated with Sachem John Hamilton persist as an independent group today. In his will, Hamilton named his non-Mohegan wife, Eleanor Fortin as Sachem. She is now the leader of the "Hamilton group." Despite their contentious histories and disagreements, both groups continued to participate in tribal activities and to identify as members of the Mohegan people. The Hamilton band of Mohegans continues to function and govern themselves independently of the MTIC, holding periodic gatherings and activities in their traditional territory of south-central Connecticut.

Extinction and revival of Language[edit]

The last living native speaker of theMohegan language,Fidelia "Flying Bird" A. Hoscott Fielding,died in 1908. The Mohegan language was recorded primarily in her diaries, and in articles and aSmithsonian Institutionreport made by the earlyanthropologist,Frank Speck.[16][17]Her niece,Gladys Tantaquidgeon,worked to preserve the language.[8]Since 2012, the Mohegan Tribe has established a project to revive its language and establish new generations of native speakers.

Ethnobotany[edit]

The Mohegan people have always had extensive knowledge of local flora and fauna, of hunting and fishing technologies, of seasonal adaptations, and of herbal medicine, as practices passed down through the generations. Gladys Tantaquidgeon was instrumental in recording herbal medicinal knowledge and folklore, and in comparing these plants and practices to those of other Algonquian peoples like the Lenni Lenape (Delaware) and Wampanoag,

For example, aninfusionof bark removed from the south side of thesilver maple treeis used by the Mohegan for cough medicine.[18]The Mohegan also use the inner bark of thesugar mapleas a cough remedy, and the sap as a sweetening agent and to make maple syrup.[19]

Confusion with the Mohican people[edit]

Although similar in name, the Mohegan are a different tribe from theMohican,who share similar Algonkian culture and the members of whom constitute another speech community with the greaterAlgonquian languagefamily.

The Mohican (also called the Stockbridge Mohican) were historically based along the upperHudson Riverin present-day easternNew Yorkand along the upperHousatonic Riverin western Massachusetts. In the United States, both tribes have been referred to in various historic documents by the spelling "Mohican", based on mistakes in translation and location.[20]But, theDutchcolonistAdriaen Block,one of the first Europeans to record the names of both tribes, clearly distinguished between the "Morhicans" (now the Mohegans) and the "Mahicans, Mahikanders, Mohicans, [or] Maikens".[20][21]

In 1735, Housatonic Mohican leaders negotiated with Massachusetts Governor Jonathan Belcher to found the town ofStockbridge, Massachusetts,just to the west of the Berkshire Mountains, as a mission village. After theAmerican Revolution,these Mohican people, along with New York Mohicans and members of theWappingerof the east bank of the central and lower Hudson River,[22]relocated to central New York to live among the nativeOneida people.In time the settlement became known asStockbridge, New York.During the 1820s the majority of these people removed further west, eventually settling in Wisconsin, where today they constitute the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. These removals inspired the myth of the "Last of the Mohicans."[citation needed]

Most of the descendants of the Mohegan tribe, by contrast, have continued to live in New England, and particularly in Connecticut, since the colonial era.

Notable Mohegans[edit]

In literature[edit]

Lydia Sigourneypublished her poemThe Rival Kings of Mohegan, contrasted with the Rival Brothers of Persia.in her 1827 collection of poetry. In that same collection are two other poems relating to the Mohegan nation,The Chair of the Indian King.andBurial of Mazeen.. The first she describes as a rough rocky recess in the region of Mohegan and known as "the chair of Uncas": Mazeen she calls the last of the royal line of the Mohegan nation.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^abChisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)."Mohican, Mahican and Mohegan".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^"General History of Duchess County, From 1609 to 1876, Inclusive", Philip H. Smith, Pawling, New York, 1877, p. 154
  3. ^William C. Sturtevant, ed. (1978).Handbook of North American Indians.Washington: Smithsonian Institution.ISBN9780160045752.
  4. ^The Mohegan Tribe: Heritage - Our Traditions and Symbols
  5. ^Jaap Van Marle, ed. (1993).Historical linguistics 1991: papers from the 10th international conference on historical linguistics, Amsterdam, 12-16 August 1991.Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.ISBN9789027236098.
  6. ^"Mohegan Event Timeline, 1933 to present"Archived2017-05-17 at theWayback Machine,Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut, official website
  7. ^"25 USC § 1775 - Findings and purposes",Mohegan Nation (Connecticut) Land Claim Settlement Act(1994), Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School, accessed 12 January 2013
  8. ^abc"Running Against Time - Medicine Woman Preserves Mohegan Culture".School of Anthropology; Alumni Newsletter.University of Pennsylvania. Summer 2001.
  9. ^"The Mohegan Tribe Celebrates Re-Opening of Tantaquidgeon Museum".Press Room.The Mohegan Tribe.Retrieved25 November2012.
  10. ^ab"Passings: John E. Hamilton; Indian Activist".Los Angeles Times.12 May 1988.Retrieved28 February2013.John E. Hamilton; Indian Activist
  11. ^Oberg, Michael Leroy (2003).Uncas: first of the Mohegans.Ithaca (N.Y.): Cornell University Press.ISBN978-0801438776.
  12. ^"Contemporary History of Mohegan, 1933-2002"Archived2018-10-06 at theWayback Machine,Native American Mohegans
  13. ^Associated Press, "Gladys Tantaquidgeon, Mohegans' Medicine Woman, Is Dead at 106",New York Times,2 November 2005
  14. ^"Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut v. Mohegan Tribe & Nation, Inc"(PDF).State of Connecticut Judicial Branch. February 20, 2001. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2020-10-30.Retrieved2013-06-06.
  15. ^ab"Final Determination that the Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut Does Exist as an Indian Tribe",Federal Register,Vol. 59, No. 50, 15 March 1994, accessed 18 March 2013
  16. ^Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology
  17. ^Mithun, Marianne (1979). Lyle Campbell (ed.).The languages of native America: historical and comparative assessment.Austin: University of Texas Press.ISBN978-0292746244.
  18. ^Tantaquidgeon, Gladys 1928 Mohegan Medicinal Practices, Weather-Lore and Superstitions. SI-BAE Annual Report #43: 264-270 (p. 269)
  19. ^Tantaquidgeon, Gladys 1972 Folk Medicine of the Delaware and Related Algonkian Indians. Harrisburg. Pennsylvania Historical Commission Anthropological Papers #3 (p. 69, 128)
  20. ^abWilliam C. Sturtevant (General Editor), Bruce G. Trigger (Volume Editor).Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 15, Northeast.Smithsonian Institution,Washington (1978).{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help)
  21. ^Campbell, Lyle (1997).American Indian languages: the historical linguistics of native America([Online-Ausg.]. ed.). New York, NY: Oxford Univ. Press.ISBN978-0195094275.
  22. ^"The Road to Kingsbridge:Daniel Nimhamand the Stockbridge Indian Company in the American Revolution ", Laurence M. Hauptman,American Indian,Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, 2017
  23. ^Melissa Jane Fawcett.Medicine Trail: The Life and Lessons of Gladys Tantaquidgeon.University of Arizona Press (2000),

External links[edit]

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