 fact.
    The Europeans found that immense region which lies between the Penobscot and
the Potomac, the Atlantic and the Mississippi, in the possession of a people who
sprang from the same stock. In one or two points of this immense boundary, their
limits may have been a little extended or curtailed, by the surrounding nations;
but such, in general terms, was the extent of their territory. The generic name
of this people was the Wapanachki. They were fond, however, of calling
themselves the Lenni Lenape, which of itself signifies, an unmixed people. It
would far exceed the information of the author, to enumerate a moiety of the
communities, or tribes, into which this race of beings was subdivided. Each
tribe had its name, its chiefs, its hunting grounds, and, frequently, its
dialect. Like the feudal princes of the old world, they fought among themselves,
and exercised most of the other privileges of sovereignty. Still, they admitted
the claims of a common origin, a similar language, and of that moral interest,
which was so faithfully and so wonderfully transmitted through their traditions.
One branch of this numerous people was seated on a beautiful river, known as the
Lenapewihittuck, where the long house, or Great Council Fire, of the nation was
universally admitted to be established.
    The tribe that possessed the country which now composes the south-western
parts of New-England, and that portion of New-York that lies east of the Hudson,
and the country even much farther to the south, was a mighty people, called the
Mahicanni, or, more commonly, the Mohicans. The latter word has since been
corrupted by the English, into Mohegan.
    The Mohicans were again subdivided. In their collective capacity, they even
disputed the point of antiquity with their neighbours, who possessed the long
house; but their claim to be the eldest son of their grandfather, was freely
allowed. Of course, this portion of the original proprietors of the soil was the
first dispossessed by the whites. The few of them that now remain, are chiefly
scattered among other tribes, and retain no other memorials of their power and
greatness, than their melancholy recollections.
    The tribe that guarded the sacred precincts of the council house, was
distinguished for ages by its flattering title of the »Lenape;« but after the
English changed the appellation of their river to Delaware, they came gradually
to be known by the same name. In the use of these terms, however, great delicacy
of perception was observed among themselves. These shades of expression pervade
their language, tempering all
