Heckewelder wrote, in his "Indian Nations," "Gaaschtinick, since called by the name of Norman's Kill," and recited a Delaware tradition, with the coloring of truth, that that nation consented there, under advisement of the Dutch, to take the rank of women, i. e. a nation without authority to make war or sell lands. The tradition is worthless. The Dutch did make "covenants of friendship"" 'here with several tribes as early as 1625 (Doc Hist. N. Y. iii, 51), but none of the character stated. All the tribes were treated as equals in trade and friendship. Whatever of special favor there was was with the Mahicans among whom they located. The first treaty, "offensive aid defensive," which was made was by the English with the Five Nations in 1664-5. The Mahicans had then sold their lands and retired to the Housatenuk, and the Mohawks and their alliant nations had become the dominant power at Albany. Nachtenak is quoted as the Mahican name of Waterford, or rather as the name of the point of land now occupied by that city, lying between the Mohawk and the Hudson. Probably the same as the following:

Mathahenaak, "being a part of a parcel of land called the foreland of the Half-Moon, and by the Indians Mathahenaack, being on the north of the fourth branch or fork of the Mohawk." Matha is an orthography of Macha (Stockbridge, Nauklm; Del. Lechau), with locative' iik, "At the fork" -- now or otherwise known as Half- Moon Point, Waterford. Quahemiscos is a record form of the name of what is now known as Long Island, near Waterford. Monemius Island, otherwise Cohoes Island and Haver Island, just below Cohoes Falls, the site of Monemius's Castle, or residence of Monemius or Moenemines, a sachem of the Mahicans in 1630, so entered on Van Rensselaer's map.