210 TRIBES AND DIALECTS OF CONNECTICUT 



[ETH. ANN. 43 



One, at least, of the tribes of eastern Long Island contributed 

 individuals to the Mohegan nation. At the present day the Fowler 

 family is of remote paternal Montauk descent. We should, I think, 

 hesitate in classifying the Montauk and its affiliated tribes inhabiting 

 the eastern portion of Long Island intimately with the Mohegan- 

 Pequot, since we have so little information on the dialectic and 

 culture properties of the Long Islanders. The inhabitants of the 

 eastern portion of the island differed, however, from those of the 

 western portion, an assumption fairly well founded through historical 

 and archeological contributions by various writei's.' Since, how- 

 ever, the Montauk and their allies were in close political and com- 

 mercial contact with the Pequot and Mohegan-Pequot, it may be, 

 I presume, fairly safe to assume that something more than mere 

 social relations existed between the two groups.'" The eastern Long 

 Island group under consideration, however, according to Michelson, 

 fell within the confines of the larger Massachusetts-Narragansett- 

 Pequot dialectic division." 



To properly understand the composite character of the southern 

 New England tribes, especially those nearest the Hudson River 

 and the New York State boundary, it is necessary to revert for a 

 moment to the question of Iroquois influence. The early accounts 

 of the region are replete with reference to the constant friction 

 between the two stocks, the Iroquois, as usual, the aggressors, as 

 successful in their cultural conquest as they were in their political 

 invasion. There seems to have been no retreat for the tribes border- 

 ing on Long Island Sound as far as Cape Cod. It was therefore 

 inevitable that the institutions and manufactures of the Algonkian 

 should have been modified by contact with the more advanced 

 Iroquois. We may even remark the survival of such an influence 

 in the decadent ethnological characteristics of the southern New 

 England peoples as they are revealed to us in the local records and 

 in modern survivals. In architecture, implements, ceramics, basketry, 

 beaded and quilled embroidery, costuming, and decorative designs 

 the testimony is abundant for similar properties existing in both 



• R. P. Boltou, New York City in Indian Possession, Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the 

 American Indian (Ileye Foundation), vol. 11, No. 7 (1920). p. 271, gives evidence from historical sources, 

 chiefly land deeds, showing alDliations o! the western Long Island tribes with the Delaware subtribes 

 rather than with those of eastern Long IsKand. A. B. Skinner, Archaeological Investigations on Man- 

 hattan Island, ibid., vol. 11, No. 6 (1920), p. 212, summarizes the convincing archaeological evidence for a 

 similar conclusion. (Of. also R. B. Dixon, Proceedings of .\merican .Antiquarian Society, April, 1914, p. 9.) 

 M. R. Harrington's unpublished material on Long Island ethnology shows also that a difference appears 

 in a careful study of the two sections of the island. 



"> De Forest has much to say concerning Long Island and Connecticut Indian commerce and similarity. 

 Mrs. Fielding related several folk tales referring to social intercourse between the two. (Cf. Speck, ref. 

 (i), p. 197.) Drake discusses the same (op. cit., Book II, p. 101). 



11 Michelson, map with Preliminary Report on Linguistic Classification of Algonciuian Tribes, Twenty- 

 eighth Ann. Rept. Bur. Ainer. Ethn. (1912). W. W. Tooker in several papers emphasized the similarity 

 of Montauk with ^lassachusetts. 



