A., vol., vol. lii. 239.

vi

INTRODUCTION.

lineage, who inhabited the valley of the Hudson between New York and Albany." Mohegan, (continues the same authority.) is a word, the meaning of which is not explained by the early writers j but if we may trust the deductions of philology, it needs create little uncertainty. In the Mohegan, as spoken at the present time by their lineal descendants, the Stockbridges of Wisconsin, Maitshow, is the name of the common wolf. It is called, in cognate dialects of the Algonquin, Mycgan by the Kenistenos, and Myengun by the Chippewas, Ottawas and Pottowattomies. In the old Algonquin, as given by La Hontan, it is Mahingan, and we perceive that this was the jerm ■ employed by the early French writers for the Mohegans. In the language of the Indian priests ormedais, a mystical use of the names of various objects in the animated creation is made, in order to clothe their arts with the degree of respect and authority, which ignorant nations are ready to pay to whatsoever they do not fully understand ; in other words, that which is mysterious. Thus, in the medicin songs of the Objibwas, a wolf is called, not Myeengun, the popular term, but Mohhwag. It is believed the priests of the ancient Mohegans made similar distortion of their words, for similiar ends, and that the terms Moh hi Kan and Moh hin gan, used by the early French missionary writers for this tribe, furnish the origin of the term. The term itself, it is to be understood, by which the tribe is known to us, is not the true Indian ; but has been shorn of a part of its sound, by the early Dutch, French and English writers. The modern tribe of the Mohegans, to whom allusion has been made, called themselves Muhhekaniew.