218 TRIBES AND DIALECTS OF CONNECTICUT |eth. ann. 43 



there, while the western portion of the tribe remained independent 

 until it came finally to be linked with and absorbed by the Mohegan. 



The attitude of the Mohegan and Pequot together toward neighbor- 

 ing peoples, except the English, seems to have been one of almost 

 constant hostility. With the English of Connecticut, after the 

 destruction of the Pequot in 1636, the Mohegan allied themselves — a 

 coalition between invaders. With the Narragansett they never 

 appear to have been at peace from the first notices we encounter in 

 1634 through the whole historic period. The quarrel against the 

 Narragansett was maintained throughout by the Mohegan after the 

 Pequot had been dispersed by the English. Under Uncas the control 

 over frontier tribes on the north toward the Massachusetts border 

 line, and on the west across Connecticut River, was continued. 

 Few of the land transfers along Long Island Sound as far as the 

 Quinnipiac of New Haven were permitted without the consent and 

 signature of the Mohegan sachem. So much for the reasons why 

 the broken line is marked on the chart to indicate the dominions 

 controlled by the Pequot and Mohegan. 



One other consideration has a bearing upon the question of the sup- 

 posed Pequot-Mohegan invasion. The name Pequot is given the mean- 

 ing "destroyers," derived by Trumbull from Paquatauog,^ which if 

 correct is a deviation from the usual practice among the New England 

 tribes, who carried names which were, in general, geographical. 

 The reason is obvious in view of the indications just outlined. 



Most of the older authorities concur in stating that the Pequot 

 were invaders. Our summarized testimony comes from the Hub- 

 bard narrative, which relates how the Pequot, being "a more fierce, 

 cruel, and warlike people than the rest of the Indians, came down out 

 of the more inland parts of the continent and by force seized upon 

 one of the goodliest places near the sea and became a terror to all 

 their neighbors." '" Drake adds "the time of their migration was 

 unknown. They made all the other tribes stand in awe." Gooldn, 

 writing in 1656, spoke of the warlike character and political conquests 

 of the Pequots, and adds an opinion on their migration. 



Yet, even with some knowledge now of the Pequot and Mohegan 

 dialects, we can not trace earlier habitat through the identities of 

 speech either among the Delaware, the Mahican, or elsewhere — ■ 

 unless it be in that little-known region of the upper Connecticut 

 River in central Massachusetts — since Mahican is not sufficiently 

 closer, for instance, to Mohegan-Pequot than it is to Massachusetts 

 (Natick). Otherwise failing to trace Mohegan-Pequot to an earlier 

 home, we are left to regard the possibility of its having formed a local 

 group in Connecticut, or in the interior of Massachusetts somewhere, 

 which e.xpanded and broadened its territory to an extent which in the 

 eyes of its neighbors practically amounted to an invasion. In such 



« J. Trumbull. Indian Names in Connecticut (1S81), p. 50. 

 '• Quoted in Drake, op. cit., Book II, p. 101. 



