speck] 



A MOHEGAN-PEQUOT DIARY 211 



areas, the Iroquois evidently somewhere responsible. The ceremonial 

 functions of wampum, clan inheritance, some elements of medicinal 

 superstitions and folklore likewise reflect a similar influence. '- 



The ethnological content of Mohegan-Pequot culture is therefore 

 valuable to the ethnologist, because it represents what was charac- 

 teristic of a large area in southern New England stretching from 

 Narragansett Bay to the Connecticut River and north approximately 

 to the Massachusetts line, specifically embracing at least three prom- 

 inent tribal groups, the original Pecjuot, the western Nehantic, and 

 the later Mohegan-Pequot. On the map (pi. 20) 1 have undertaken 

 to outline the determinable groups. It is most fortunate, accordingly, 

 that the Mohegan maintained themselves for so long a time and 

 fulfilled the function of conserving the type dialect of the area until 

 at least some specimens of it, such as they are, could have reached the 

 hands of investigators. They have preserved for us the only possible 

 existing source of information on the life of this immediate group. 

 The remaining Pequot in Connecticut have become hopelessly 

 deculturated, while the Long Island remnants lost their language 

 before records of it were made. West of the Connecticut River the 

 one band at Scatticook, which remained fairly intact until recently, 

 belonged outside of this group with the lower Hudson River group 

 of Wappinger, so falling into classification as an intermediate between 

 the Mohegan-Pequot of southern New England and the Mahican 

 or perhaps the Munsee dialects. 



The other southeastern New England subdivisions, the Narragan- 

 sett and Massachusetts (Natick), were more fortunate in receiving 

 attention from the early missionaries, only the Nauset and Wam- 

 panoag having been specifically overlooked by the recorders of native 

 life and language of early times. Practically all of these groups, 

 howevei', are still represented by more or less segregated bands of 

 descendants in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, from whom some 

 very fragmentary but, nevertheless, helpful contributions may be 

 hoped for. 



A further note concerning the southern New England Indians will 

 remind us that in 17S8 many of the Mohegan, Pecjuot, Narragansett, 

 Tunxis, Montauk, and some Wampanoag withdrew, combined under 

 the name of Brotherton Indians under the leadership of Samson 

 Occimi, a converted Mohegan, and settled among the Oneida, in 



'^Several elhnolo^ists have reniarkel upon Iroriuois influence here along different lines: C. C. Wili- 

 oughby, Pottery of the Xew England Indians, Putnam Anniversary Volume 1909, p. 97; G. H. Perkins, 

 -\boriginal Remains in Champlain Valley, American .Vnthropologist, n. s. vol. U (1909), p. 607; A. B. 

 Skinner, Archoological Investigations on Manh.ittan Island; Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum 

 of the .\mericaD Indian (Heye Foundation) (1920), vol. 11, rr, 6, pp. 1.53, 210; R. B. Di.\on, The Myth- 

 ology of the Central and Eastern .\Igonkins: Journal of .\merican Folk-Lore (1909), N'o. Lxxxni; 

 The Early Migrations of the Indians of N'ew England, Proceedings of American .Vntiquarian Society, 

 .\pril, 1914; De Forest, History of the Indians of Connecticut (IS.iT). pp. 65H50. 2S9, etc.; and the writer's 

 Decorative .\rt and Basketry of the Indian Tribes of Connecticut; Geological Survey of Canada, .Anthro- 

 pological Series, N'o. 10 (1915). 



