510 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1921. 



expression. The Huron, Magua, and his fellow tribesmen show the 

 Indian's darkest side. 



Space does not permit me to analyze the different novels of Cooper 

 which appeared between 1823 and 1841, such as The Pioneers, The 

 Last of the Mohicans, The Deerslayer, The Prairie, and The Path- 

 finder, but a few critical remarks must be made, particularly with 

 regard to The Last of the Mohicans, which is generally considered 

 his masterpiece. Cooper does not discriminate enough between the 

 different Indian tribes and their subdivisions. For example, too 

 little distinction is made by him between Delawares and Mohicans. 

 Uncas,- the Mohican, is for Cooper, at the same time, u a son of the 

 great Unamis" (Turtle). This is, of course, absurd, as the Unami 

 constituted the principal of the three subtribes — or, according to 

 Morgan, the three gentes — into which the Delawares were divided. 

 The Mohicans were a distinct people. 



Concerning the identification of the Mohican, there exists, or 

 existed, a great confusion, not uncommon in American tribal syn- 

 onymy. Briefly stated, there were, or still are, two different groups 

 of Mohican, each of which had its distinct dialect. One of these 

 groups lived on the upper course of the Connecticut River, and the 

 other one on the upper Hudson as far as the vicinity of Lake Cham- 

 plain. Cooper's Mohican seem to belong to the latter group. But 

 they were certainly not the last Mohican, even in 1757, the year in 

 which the romantic events painted by him are supposed to have 

 happened. Of the Connecticut Mohican about 100 were still existing 

 in 1901, although largely of mixed blood. With regard to the Mohi- 

 can formerly of the Hudson River region, Michelson 3 a few sum- 

 mers ago collected some linguistic material among the remnant then 

 residing at Green Bay, Wis. The logical inference which we must 

 draw from the foregoing is that the pathetic lament of Chingach- 

 gook : " I am on the hilltop and must go down into the valley ; and 

 when Uncas follows in my footsteps there will no longer be any of 

 the blood of the Sagamores, for my boy is the last of the Mohicans " — 

 can not be taken literally. 



From Cooper's novels the reader might infer that the Mohican 

 and Delawares spoke the same language. Hawkeye, for instance, 

 always speaks Delaware with Chingachgook and Uncas. This is not 

 the fact. Moreover, the Mohican language is more closely related 

 to Pequot than to Delaware.* 



s It is obvious that Cooper's fictitious Uncas has nothing in common with the historic 

 Uncas, a Mohican chieftain of Connecticut who died about 1683. Nevertheless there 

 seema to exist some confusion with regard to the two. Cf. Handbook of American In- 

 dians, part 2, Bur. Am. Ethnology, under Uncas ; see also Unami, Mohican, and Mohegan 

 in the same work. 



* Internat Journ. of Am. Linguistics, vol. I, p. 57. New York, 1917. 



4 Michelson, loc. cit. 



