206 TRIBES AND DIALECTS OF CONNECTICUT [eth. ann. « 



presented to readers. But those articles suffered a great disadvan- 

 tage through appearing in various scientific and semipopular journals 

 over too wide a period of time.' In consequence, the status of this 

 dialect among the others of its group was never satisfactorily 

 defined, and ethnological comparisons among the eastern Algonkian 

 were never extended over the southern New England group as they 

 should have been if all the information available had been at first 

 properly assembled.' The full account of this information would 

 otherwise, I believe, have merited more serious attention; some 

 deductions in culture could even have been drawn. Now, with the 

 whole Mohegan-Pequot matter as much as possible in mind, and the 

 neighboring eastern types of dialect and custom in view, I have been 

 bold enough in this paper to make a few points of classification and 

 to define the group among its relatives as it deserves. 



ETHNIC COMPOSITION OF THE MOHEGAN-PEQUOT 



In the history of the American colonies the Mohegan Indians 

 played an important role. In literature they have been made re- 

 nowned, but unfortunately no attention was ever paid to their internal 

 qualities of language and culture, things which stand for so much 

 more in the understanding of a people's place in the world of human 

 development. For almost a century they have been regarded as so 

 completely civilized that their language and native customs have 

 even faded from memory. Hale, as did several other writers, com- 

 pletely overlooked the fact that within 15 years of his time of writing 

 individuals lived in most of the contemporary New England com- 

 munities who knew words and sentences in their native Algonkian 

 dialects, even if they could not converse in them consecutively. He 

 believed that none of the Indians of Mashpee, of Gay Head, or of 

 Middleboro, the remnants of the Nauset and Wampanoag tribes, 

 none of the Narragansett of Rhode Island, none of the Mohegan, 



• (n) The?. Modern Pequots and their Language. 3. D. Prince and F. G. Speck. Amer. Anthrop., vol. 5, 

 No. 2 (1903). 



(6) Glossary of the Mohegan-Pequot Language. J. D. Prince and F. G. Speck. Amer. Anthrop., vol. li, 

 No. 1 (1904). 



(c) A Modern Mohegan-Pequot Text. F. O. Speck. Amer. Anthrop., vol. 0, No. 4 (1904). 



(d) Dying .\merican .Speech-Echoes from Connecticut. J. D. Prince and F. G. Speck. Proceedings 

 Amer. Phil. Soc, vol. .xlii. No. 174 (1904). 



(f) A Mohegan-Pequot Witchcraft Tale. F. Q. Speck. Jour. Amer. Folk-Lore, vol. .^cvi, No. Gl (1903). 



(S) The Name Chahnameed. J. D. Prince. Ibid. 



(</) Some Mohegan-Pequot Legends. F. G. Speck. Jour, .\nier. Folk-Lore, vol. xvn (1904). 



(*) Remn.ants of the Nehautics. F. G. Speck. Southern Workman, February, 1918. 



(i) Notes of the Mohegan and Niantic Indians. F. G. Speck. Anthropological Papers of .imer. Mus. 

 Nat. Hist., N. Y., vol. in (1909). 



(j) Decorative.Art of the Indian Tribes of Connecticut. F.G. Speck, .\nthropological Series of Geolog- 

 ical Survey of Canada, No. 10 (1915). 



(k) Medicine Practices of the Northeastern .\lgonkians. F. G. Speck. Proceedings of the Nineteenth 

 Congress of .\mericanists, Washington. 1915. Washington, 1917. 



' In his Preliminary Report on the Linguistic Classiflcation of Algonquian Languages, Twenty-eighth 

 Ann. Rept. Bur. .\mer. Ethn. (1912), Dr. Truman Michelson hesitated to classify Mohegan and Peqiiot 

 d3flnitely. 



