In the old Algonquin, as given by La Hontan, it is Mahingan, and we perceive that this was the term employed by the early French writers for the Mohegans. In the language of the Indian priests or medais, 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 medicen songs of the Odjibwas. 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 similar ends, and that the terms Moh hi Kan and Moh hin gan, used by the early French

• Moulton's Hist, of New York, part i. 227.

b Connecticoota, meaning Long River, was the Indian name, says Judge Benton.

'■ Bancroft's Hist. U. S. A., vol. iii. 239.

INTRODUCTION. ix

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 Muhhekamew. This is, manifestly, a compound declarative phrase, and not a simple nominative, and is equivalent to the phrase, '• I am ^ Mohegan." It is in accordance both with religious custom, and the usage of the Indian priesthood, to infer a unity of superstitious practices in nearly affiliated tribes. In this manner the word "Mohegan" was used to denote^ not a common wolf, but the caries lupus, under the supposed influence of medical or necromantic arts.