Mohegan

“ In order to save his villages the Mohegan marched out several miles toward the Narragansetts. When they were face to face, he called to Miantonomah.
"You have a good many brave warriors, so have I; it is a pity that these men should lose their lives because of a quarrel that is only between you and me; if you are as much of a man as you claim to be, you will come forward, and we will fight it out between ourselves; if you slay me, my men shall be yours; if I slay you, your men shall be mine." ”

“ But Richard had, at the bottom, a great deal of veneration for the knowledge of Mohegan, especially in external wounds; and, retaining all his desire for a participation in glory, he advanced nigh the Indian, and said: “Sago, sago, Mohegan! sago my good fellow I am glad you have come; give me a regular physician, like Dr. Todd to cut into flesh, and a native to heal the wound. Do you remember, John, the time when I and you set the bone of Natty Bumppo's little finger, after he broke it by falling from the rock, when he was trying to get the partridge that fell on the cliffs? ”

“ The sight of the Mohawk women and young girls, arming themselves as best they could to resist the Mohegan attack, was in itself an irresistible appeal to their tribesmen to exert themselves to the utmost in defending them against the well-known horrors of captivity, which would undoubtedly come upon them if the castle fell into the hands of the enemy. ”

“ Do not mistake me, I beg, for it is not color nor lineage that constitutes merit; and I know not that he who claims affinity to the proper owners of this soil has not the best right to tread these hills with the lightest conscience.”
Mohegan turned solemnly to the speaker, and, with the peculiarly significant gestures of an Indian, he spoke:
“Father, you are not yet past the summer of life; your limbs are young. Go to the highest hill, and look around you. ”

“ Accordingly the Netop was seated by the large fire, with a Mohegan at either side of him, to hold him fast until the tomahawk had been sunk into his head. Although Captain Church had seen much blood-shedding and had made short work of many other Indians, to-night he walked away, with his heart a little sick.
The Netop had appeared to be waiting for the tomahawk, as if he intended to die like a brave. But when the Mohegan struck, he suddenly jerked his head aside so cleverly that the tomahawk not only missed him entirely, but flew from the Mohegan's hand and almost killed one of the others. ”

“ I have consented to serve Marmaduke Temple! to be an inmate in the dwelling of the greatest enemy of my race! yet what better could I do? The servitude cannot be long, and when the motive for submitting to it ceases to exist, I will shake it off, like the dust from my feet."
"Is he a Mingo, that you will call him enemy?" said Mohegan. "The Delaware warrior sits still, and waits the time of the Great Spirit. He is no woman, to cry out like a child." ”

“ The object of his address was to calm the current of perturbed feelings, to strengthen the ground of confidence in Him who "who appointeth the bounds of man's habitation," and to enforce the motives of faithful obedience to his commands. The following day, all Mohegan were assembled upon the banks of the river. There lay the boats, prepared to convey to their distant abode the emigrants, whose number was about two hundred. There were sorrowful countenances, and solemn partings, and mutual good wishes, and blessings. Amid the throng, the lofty figure of the young warriour Ontologon was seen. ”

“ I found him on the mountain hunting in company with the Leather-Stocking, as if they were of the same family; but there is a manifest difference in their manners. The youth delivers himself in chosen language, such as is seldom heard in these hills, and such as occasions great surprise to me, how one so meanly clad, and following so lowly a pursuit, could attain. Mohegan also knew him. Doubtless he is a tenant of Natty's hut. Did you remark the language of the lad. Monsieur Le Quoi? ”

“ Its church is very large and roomy, and is one of those few in Cornwall that [140] have a spire. The fine inscribed font has demi-angels at the angles, holding crossed swords.
ST. KEVERNE.
In the churchyard, among other memorials of shipwreck, is the granite cross, bearing the simple inscription, "MOHEGAN, R.I.P." marking where lie many of the dead who were lost in that wreck. Near by is the touching epitaph upon "Charles Cyril Brownjohn, London, aged 23. S.S. Mohegan, Oct. 14, 1898. The devoted and only son of a widowed mother. He never said an unkind word to her in his life." ”

“ For grief turns a black head to gray.
"Hear how old John turns his quavers. What damned dull music an Indian song is, after all, Major. I wonder if they ever sing by note?"
While Richard was singing and talking, Mohegan was uttering dull, monotonous tones, keeping time by a gentle motion of his head and body. ”

“ The log on which Mohegan was seated lighted at its further end, and the Indian appeared to be surrounded by fire. Still he was unmoved. As his body was unprotected, his sufferings must have been great; but his fortitude was superior to all. His voice could yet be heard even in the midst of these horrors. Elizabeth turned her head from the sight, and faced the valley Furious eddies of wind were created by the heat, and, just at the moment, the canopy of fiery smoke that overhung the valley was cleared away, leaving a distinct view of the peaceful village beneath them, My father! — my father! ”

“ She labored longer as a home missionary among the Mohegans, who lived in the neighborhood of Norwich, and there displayed most conspicuously the moral heroism of her nature. In conjunction with Sarah Breed, she commenced her philanthropic operations in the year 1827. "The first object that drew them from the sphere of their own church was the project of opening a Sunday-school for the poor Indian children of Mohegan. Satisfied that this was a work which would meet with the Divine approval, they marked out their plans and pursued them with untiring energy. ”

“ Such men are too common to excite surprise.”
“He was reared in the family of my grandfather; served him for many years during their campaigns at the West, where he became attached to the woods; and he was left here as a kind of locum tenens on the lands that old Mohegan (whose life my grandfather once saved) induced the Delawares to grant to him when they admitted him as an honorary member of their tribe.
“This, then, is thy Indian blood?”
“I have no other,” said Edwards, smiling—“Major Effingham was adopted as the son of Mohegan, who at that time was the greatest man in his nation ”

“ Mrs Fielding is indeed the Dorothy Pentreath of the Mohegan-Pequots, and is quite as deserving of an enduring monument as was the last old woman who spoke Cornish.
Mohegan-Pequot Glossary
Ahupanun come here. Brothertown word. No cognate.
Appece apple (ăpî's) . There is no native equivalent for ‘apple’ in Abn. (aples) or D. (apel) . The word is not given in ND.
Aque hello (ĕkwî') = Abn. kuai.
Bagenood bag (bā'gĕnûd) . A hybrid, the last part of which is cogn. with RW. nutassen hemp-bags; cf. N. nutin to lift up; RW. niutash to take on the back. Same stem as in manodah bag, q. v. ”

“ There is Mohegan, to be sure, he may have some right, being a native; but it's little the poor fellow can do now with his rifle. How is this managed in France, Monsieur Le Quoi? Do you let everybody run over your land in that country helter-skelter, as they do here, shooting the game, so that a gentleman has but little or no chance with his gun?”
“Bah! diable, no, Meester Deeck,” replied the Frenchman; “we give, in France, no liberty except to the ladi.”
“Yes, yes, to the women, I know,” said Richard, “that is your Salic law. I read, sir, all kinds of books ”

“ Mohegan John Mohegan or Indian John — Christian name of Chingachgook (Ch. 1) Penguillan Benjamin Penguillan (Ben Pump) — (Ch. 5) Pettibone Remarkable Pettibone — spinster housekeeper for Judge Temple. (Ch. 5) Le Quoi Monsieur Le Quoi — a French refugee. ”

“ Their very name, as we learn from Colden, was a synonyme for cruelty and dread.25 No tribe, perhaps, on the continent, produced better warriors, or have ever more fully realized, as a nation, the highest measure of heroism and military glory to which hunter nations can reach.
25 The word Mohawk itself, is not a term of Mohawk origin, but one imposed upon them, as is believed, by the Mohegan race, who inhabited the borders of the sea. Among this race the Dutch and English landed, and they would naturally adopt the term most in vogue for so celebrated a tribe. ”

“ Next to the bier, walked the aged warriour, and his wife; like the patriarch, who would go down to the grave to his son mourning. The Chieftain Robert, and John Cooper followed, with heads declined; as those who had testified friendship for the deceased, without having been acquainted with her history. Many of the natives of Mohegan, two and two, in decent dresses, next appeared, wishing to shew respect to old Zachary, whom they all loved. A number of the inhabitants of the town were seen to close the procession. They had heard, from the benevolent clergyman, some notice of the departed ”

“ When all were safely over, he moved up the opposite bank, and continued his discourse. “It was wrong, my dear sir, very wrong, to suffer such feelings to rise, under any circumstances, and especially in the present, where the evil was not intended.”
“There is good in the talk of my father,” said Mohegan, stopping short, and causing those who Were behind him to pause also; “it is the talk of Miquon. The white man may do as his fathers have told him; but the 'Young Eagle' has the blood of a Delaware chief in his veins ”

“ Such were the females in their best estate; and such the poverty and degeneracy of the once powerful tribe of Mohegans.
Yet, strange as it may seem, amid their degradation they retained strong traits of national pride. In the gravity, and dignity of brow, which the better sort assumed, might be traced a lingering remnant of the creed of their ancestors, that the red man was formed before his white brethren, and of better clay. ”

“ The Mohegans knew this wonder of natural masonry, for to this point they were pursued by a hostile tribe, and on reaching the gulf found themselves on the edge of a precipice that was too steep at that point to descend. Behind them was the foe; before them, the chasm. At the suggestion of one of their medicine-men they joined in a prayer to the Great Spirit for deliverance, and when again they looked about them, there stood the bridge. Their women were hurried over; then, like so many Horatii, they formed across this dizzy highway and gave battle. ”

“ They were the Narragansetts, the Mohegans, and the Pequots. The Mohegans were then tributaries of the Pequots, and were restive under subjection to their fierce and warlike conquerors, who were estimated to number at the time 1,000 fighting men. ... The policy of the whites was to aggravate the dissensions of the tribes, and to make alliance with one or more of them. Winthrop records in March, 1631, the visit to Boston of a Connecticut Indian, probably a Mohegan, who invited the English to come and plant near the river, and who offered presents, with the promise of a profitable trade. ”

“ A small number of Mohegans still reside in the vicinity of Norwich, Connecticut, where they have a neat little church, and a missionary has labored among them with some success. A few Penobscot Indians, too, are found in Maine, and here and there, in other places, may be met one or more of the descendants of the aborigines; but they are like the last scattered leaves of autumn,—withered, decaying, and frozen by the wintry blasts; spring finds them not again. ”

“ Mohegans, Munsees, Manhattans, Metöacs, and other affiliated tribes and bands of Algonquin lineage, inhabited the banks of the Hudson and the islands, bay and seaboard of New York, including Long Island, during the early periods of the rise of the Iroquois Confederacy. ... The Mohegans finally retired over the Highlands east of them into the valley of the Housatonic. The Munsees and Nanticokes retired to the Delaware river and reunited with their kindred, the Lenapees, or modern Delawares. ”

“ This union of their resources combined, with their native bravery and cunning, and their occupation of the most commanding military position in eastern North America, to render them invincible among red men. They exterminated their old enemies the Adirondacks, and pushed the Mohegans over the mountains from the Hudson river to the Connecticut. When they first encountered white men in 1609 their name had become a terror in New England, insomuch that as soon as a single Mohawk was caught sight of by the Indians in that country, they would raise the cry from hill to hill, "A Mohawk! ”

“ We thank you—-we thank you—-as the rain falls from the sky in summer. The pale face children are safe because of your valor. The Mohican fought like the brave warrior he always was. The men will sing of his bravery in the wigwam, and the women will tell his tale when the dusk falls. Never will be forgotten the brave Mohican guide who fought and conquered his foe in battle."
The Mohican tried to speak, but his tongue would not move. He grasped the lad's hand firmly.
Agnes bent over him. She remembered that he was a Christian. Her missionary heart overflowed with love for the guide's soul. ”