Our forefathers assert that the other country was and this another country ; that they passed over great waters, where or water where snakes are nearly connected, called Ukhokpeck ; it signifies snake water they derived the abundant • and that they lived by the side of a great water or sea, whence man of the Mahheakunnuk name of the Muhheakunnuk nation. Muhheakanneuw signifies a from the west they found tribe Muhheakunneyuk is a plural number. As they were coming they came to Hudmany - Teat waters, hut none of a How and ebb like Muhheakannuk until And son's River Then they said to one another, this is like Muhheakannuk, our nativity.

ABORIGINAL

INHABITANTS

when they found grain was very plenty in that country, they agreed to kindle a fire there and hang a kettle whereof they and their children after them might dip out their daily refreshment.1

The name given by the Mohicans and the Lenapes to the Hudson River was the Mohicanituk, or River of the Mohicans, signifying " the constantly flowing waters." By the Iroquois it was called the Cohatatea. The Mohicans belonged to the great Algonquin race stock, which mar be said to have embraced all the Indian nations from the Atlantic

TOTEMIC SIGNATURES.

to the Mississippi. Its different branches had a general similarity of language, and while the separate modifications were numerous and extreme, all the Indians within these bounds understood one another. The Mohican power is regarded by Ruttenber as hardly less formidable than that of the Iroquois, and he points out that notwithstanding the boasted supremacy of the Iroquois in war there is no historical evidence that the Mohicans were ever brought under subjection to them or despoiled of any portion of their territory. Yet it is unquestionable that the Iroquois exacted and received tribute from the Long Island Indians; and this could hardly have happened without previously obtaining dominion over the Mohicans.