Mahican

Ma·hi·can

(mə-hē′kən) also Mo·hi·can (mō-, mə-)n. pl. Mahican or Ma·hi·cans also Mohican or Mo·hi·cans 1. A member of a Native American confederacy of subtribes formerly inhabiting the upper Hudson River valley, with present-day populations in Oklahoma and Wisconsin.2. The Algonquian language of the Mahican.

Mahican

(məˈhiːkən) n, pl -cans or -can1. (Peoples) a variant of Mohican2. (Languages) a variant of Mohican

Ma•hi•can

(məˈhi kən)

n., pl. -cans, (esp. collectively) -can. 1. a member of an American Indian people who lived in the middle and upper Hudson River valley in the 17th century. 2. the extinct Eastern Algonquian language of the Mahican.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	Mahican - a member of the Algonquian people formerly living in the Hudson valley and eastward to the HousatonicMohicanAlgonquian, Algonquin - a member of any of the North American Indian groups speaking an Algonquian language and originally living in the subarctic regions of eastern Canada; many Algonquian tribes migrated south into the woodlands from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic coast
	2.	Mahican - the Algonquian language spoken by the MohicanMohicanAlgonquian language, Algonquin, Algonquian - family of North American Indian languages spoken from Labrador to South Carolina and west to the Great Plains

Mahican

enUK

Mahican

(məhē`kən), confederacy of Native North Americans of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languagesNative American languages,
languages of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere and their descendants. A number of the Native American languages that were spoken at the time of the European arrival in the New World in the late 15th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. ). The Mahican were of the Eastern Woodlands culture area. In the early 17th cent. they occupied both banks of the upper Hudson River extending north almost to Lake Champlain. Living to the northeast were the Pennacook, and to the southwest the Wappinger; both were closely related to the Mahican. The MoheganMohegan
, Native North Americans whose language belongs to the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). Also called the Mohican, they were the eastern branch of the Mahican. In the early 17th cent.
..... Click the link for more information. were a tribe of the Mahican Confederacy and are to be distinguished from the larger group. However, both groups have on occasion been referred to as Mohicans. When the Dutch arrived in what is now New York the Mohawk had been at war with the Mahican for some time and had steadily driven the Mahican east of the Hudson River. The Mahican council fire, or capital, had been moved (1664) from Schodac, near Albany, eastward to what is now Stockbridge, Mass. The complete subjection and dispersal of the Mahican were hastened by the firearms provided to their enemies by the Dutch. Some of the Mahican moved west to join the Delaware, with whom they afterward moved to the Ohio region (where the Mahican refugees lost their identity). Others placed themselves under the protection of the Iroquois Confederacy in S central New York. Those remaining in Massachusetts joined the Massachusetts Stockbridge; other Mahican descendants live in Connecticut and Wisconsin.

Bibliography

See A. Skinner, Notes on Mahikan Ethnology (1925).

Mahican

Ma·hi·can

Mahican

Ma•hi•can

Mahican

Mahican

Bibliography

Mahican

Synonyms for Mahican

noun a member of the Algonquian people formerly living in the Hudson valley and eastward to the Housatonic

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noun the Algonquian language spoken by the Mohican

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