Читать книгу The Study of Lenâpé and Their Mythology - Daniel G. Brinton - Страница 12

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All the Algonkin nations who dwelt north of the Potomac, on the east shore of Chesapeake Bay, and in the basins of the Delaware and Hudson rivers, claimed near kinship and an identical origin, and were at times united into a loose, defensive confederacy.

By the western and southern tribes they were collectively known as Wapanachkik—"those of the eastern region"—which in the form Abnaki is now confined to the remnant of a tribe in Maine. The Delawares in the far West retain traditionally the ancient confederate name, and still speak of themselves as "Eastlanders"—O-puh-narke. (Morgan.)

The members of the confederacy were the Mohegans (Mahicanni) of the Hudson, who occupied the valley of that river to the falls above the site of Albany, the various New Jersey tribes, the Delawares proper on the Delaware river and its branches, including the Minsi or Monseys, among the mountains, the Nanticokes, between Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic, and the small tribe called Canai, Kanawhas or Ganawese, whose towns were on tributaries of the Potomac and Patuxent.

That all these were united in some sort of an alliance, with the Delawares at its head, is not only proved by the traditions of this tribe itself, but by the distinct assertion of the Mohegans and others, and by events within historical times, as the reunion of the Nanticokes, New Jersey and Eastern Indians with the Delawares as with the parent stem.[17]