Early Account of the Indians Living on Long Island, New York
The Indians of Long Island were designated on the
Dutch maps Mohegans, and have been so called by his-
torians. This is but a sub-title under the general term
Algonquins, covering a great race of savages scattered
over Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and other
States.
The Indians of the island were tall and straight, mus-
cular and agile, with straight hair and reddish-brown
complexion. Their language was the Algonquin, the
highly descriptive tongue in which the apostle Eliot
wrote the Indian Bible, and which was used by other
missionaries. It was the language that greeted the col-
onists at Roanoke, and the Pilgrims at Plymouth. It
was spoken through twenty degrees of latitude and sixty
degrees of longitude. Strange that a language which a
century ago was spoken so widely and freely between the
aborigines and the settlers should have so perished that
it is doubted whether a man is living who can speak it or
read the Indian Bible, so laboriously prepared by the
apostolic John Eliot.
The Indian names of Long Island are said to be Se-
wanhacky, Wamponomon and Paumanake. These names,
or at least the first two, seem to have arisen from the
abundance of the quahog or hard clam, the shell of which
furnished the wampun or sewant, which in the earlier
times was the money of the country, as well as the
material for the embroidery and the record symbols of
the Indian belts. Matouwacs is the name given the
island on the earliest Dutch maps. The. deed to the
settlers at Easthampton styles it Paumanake. Rev.
William Hubbard, of Ipswich, in his history of New
England, called it Mattamwake. In books and deeds it
bears other names, as Meitowax, Metoac, etc. Sewan-
hacky and Wamponomon both signify the island, or place,
of shells. Of Mattanwake Judge Furman says: "In
the Narragansett language mattan was a term used to
signify anything fine or good, and duke or ake meant land
or earth; thus the whole word meant the good or pleasant
land, which was certainly highly characteristic of Long
Island, even at that period of its early settlement."
The religious notions of the Long Island Indians are
described in a communication from the Rev. Samson
Occum, published in the collections of the Massachusetts
Historical Society. His words are: " They believe in a
plurality of gods, and in one great and good being, who
controls all the rest. They likewise believe in an evil
spirit, and have their conjurors or paw-waws." The
ceremony performed by these characters was so odious
in the opinion of the whole people that the duke's laws
of 1665 enacted that ''no Indian shall be permitted to
paw-waw or perform worship to the devil in any town
within this government." It is evident, however, that they
still kept up their devil worship at the visit of the
Labadists in 1679-80. They also had divinities in the
winds and waters. It is surprising how few tokens are
found, in the shape of idols, or carvings of any kind, to
signify a reverence for their gods. The only thing which
has attracted particular attention is " the foot-print of the
evil spirit "^the impression of a foot on a boulder, now
iu the possession of the Long Island Historical Society,
which had lain upon Montauk Point from the earliest
English knowledge, and probably for centuries before,
and which was always an object of Indian veneration.
The lodges or wigwams of the Long Island Indians
were fifteen or twenty feet wide, having a frame of two
rows of poles bent together and covered with rushes,
except along the ridge, where an opening was left for
smoke to escape. This frame of poles was interlaced
with the bark of trees, and continued to a length of 180
feet or more, as the families conjointly occupying the
wigwam might require. Fires were built along the floor,
each family having its own for cooking and for comfort
in cold weather. The principal household utensils were
earthen pots and gourds for holding water.
The original fur and feather clothing of these savages
gave place to cloth after the advent of Europeans. At
first a blanket about the shoulders and a cloth hanging
from a belt about the waist composed their costume, but
they afterward imitated the dress of the whites. All were
fond of decoration. In early deeds from them there is a
peculiar reservation of " the trees in what eagles do build
their nests," doubtless in order to secure to them the
feathers of the royal bird, which were among their valued
adornments.
Their canoes were of different sizes, from the light
shallop to those of sixty feet in length. They were
wrought out of logs with stone axes, with the help of fire.
Their pottery, of which specimens are found in the shell
heaps, is of clay, mixed with water, hollowed out by the
hand and baked. Most of the specimens are very inferior.
Private collections abound in arrow-heads, stone axes,
and the pestles and mortars which served them for mills.
The Long Island Historical Society has a collection of
Indian relics, in which the only metallic instrument is
an ax of native copper unearthed a few years ago at
Rockaway, together with a few stone axes and a quantity
of spear heads, apparently buried for preservation.
Long Island was the great source of the supply of
wampun or sewant — the Indian shell money, as well as
the beads which they wore as ornaments or fastened to
their clothing. Along the shores of the island immense
deposits of shells once existed (some of which yet remain),
from which the blue portion forming the eye was care-
fully removed for making blue beads; these were
worth three times as much as the white, which were
made from the inner pillars of the conch shell or
periwinkle.
Long Island will always be a monumental point in
history as the place to which Hudson and his mariners
first came as the key to open a world in commerce and
civilization, to which the discoveries of Columbus were
but the vestibule. The earliest account of the Indians
of the island is that given by Hudson in the narrative of
his voyage of 1609. On the 4th of September of that
year he came to anchor in Gravesend Bay. He says the
Canarsie Indians came on board his vessel without any
apprehension and seemed very glad of his coming. They
brought with them green tobacco and exchanged it for
knives and beads. They were clad in deer skins, well
dressed, and were "very civil." On a subsequent visit
some of them were dressed in "mantles of feathers " and
some in " skins of diver sorts of good furs." Hudson states
that " they had yellow copper, and red copper tobacco
pipes, and ornaments of copper about their necks;" also
that they had currants and "great store of maize or
Indian corn, whereof they made good bread." They also
brought him hemp. Some of his men landed where is
now the town of Gravesend and met many men, women
and children, who gave them tobacco. They described
the country to Hudson as " full of great tall oaks, and
the lands as pleasant with grass and flowers and goodly
trees as they had ever seen."
Doubtless the natives presented their very best festal
appearance to the great captain of the "big canoe;"
though when, seventy years after (in 1679-80). when they
were visited by the Labadist agents, Dankers and Sluyter,
after contact with the early settlers, they had sadly de-
generated, and the best collection that has been made of
their utensils and adornments fails to show any of the
yellow copper ornaments. 