APPENDIX 



GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES AND LEGENDS AT MOHEGAN 



It seems that an account of the life of old Mohegan would hardly 

 be complete without some geographical reference to localities which 

 Mi's. Fielding referred to in her narrative. To record some of these 

 legends at the present time will no doubt preserve them from oblivion, 

 because not all, by any means, are even known to the present gene- 

 ration of Mohegan. (The numbers heading the paragraphs refer to 

 the locations on the chart, pi. 31.) For instance, the very name 

 of the Thames River is not known to the Indians, and would have 

 been lost were it not for Mrs. Fielding's mention of it as o"'si"d. 

 What this term means it is impossible to say. 



2Iuddy Cove. — There is little to record about the locality, except 

 that it had a Mohegan name which did not follow the common rule 

 of native place names by passing over directly into New England 

 toponjnny. Mrs. Fielding, who mentions the place a number of 

 times, called it Basa'gwana'ntaksag, "little mud river cove." It 

 is Icnown locally as Muddj' Cove. 



A^o. 1. Fncas Fort (pi. 33, a, b). — The ancient stone inclosure 

 which tops the elevation known as Fort Hill farm is perhaps the 

 most imposing example of native ruins in the immediate neighbor- 

 hood. The site is marked (No. 1) on the chart. Here is a stone 

 inclosure encompassing three sides, consisting of rocks and bowlders, 

 plainly visible among the woods. On the north, west, and south 

 sides the remains of the stone wall range from 6 to 8 feet across and 

 from 1 to 3 feet above the floor of the woods. There are no stones 

 on the eastern face, and so there may have been a log stockade 

 instead of a wall here. The hill also is steepest on this side, where 

 it falls off to the Mohegan Road, now the highway between Norwich 

 and New London. On the northeast corner of the main inclosure 

 is a smaller inclosure of large, flat slabs laid upon a crown of the 

 hard rock. This is remembered by the Mohegan as having been a 

 kitchen, or a woman's ciuarters, used when the fort was occupied. 

 No other details seem to be remembered, so any further reconstruc- 

 tion will have to be the result of excavation and inference. Several 

 times I have paced off the area, which turns out to be 60 paces on 

 the western front and about 38 on the northern and southern. The 

 smaller inclosure or kitchen is about 30 feet square. Some of the 

 slabs here are in what appears to be their original position (pi. 33). 



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