Corchaug

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Residential area of ​​the Corchaug and neighboring tribes around 1600

The Corchaug were one of 14 Algonquin-speaking Indian tribes on Long Island in the US state of New York and lived at the beginning of the 17th century on the north coast of the island, around where the city of Southold in Suffolk County is now . The identity of the Corchaug is now considered extinct, as the last survivors of the tribe went to neighboring tribes in the 18th century and mixed with them.

Although there is evidence that there were residents of the North Fork Long Islands 10,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Corchaugs immigrated there around 1000 AD. They were allied with the three other tribes on eastern Long Island, the Montauk, Shinnecock and Manhanset, and formed the Montauk Confederation. The language of these four tribes was very closely related (if not identical) to the Mohegan-Pequot language, and all of the tribes had very close similarities in material culture. Each of these four groups in the Montauk Confederation owned a fortified village called a fort , and the tribes communicated with each other using smoke signals . There are no more traces of three forts, only Fort Corchaug has remained relatively untouched. The archaeologist Ralf Solecki was the first to make this site public.

Wampum trade

Long Island tribes paid tribute to the Pequot before that tribe was defeated in the Pequot War in 1637 , and were later also obliged to pay tribute to the Narraganset . It was common among Aborigines in southern New England and the Long Islands for the weaker groups to pay tribute to the stronger groups in the form of wampum . In general, the mainland tribes were more powerful, subjugating the Long Islands and taking their toll. Every year, entire canoe loads crossed the Long Island Sound to the north at Wampum .

The wampum trade seems to have existed before contact with Europeans, and both the manufacture and sale of wampum pearls have been well described by Marc Lescarbot , as observed around 1606. Before metal tools existed, shells were ground into the correct shape on stone disks and drilled through with stone drills. Soon after the arrival of the Europeans, the Indians used iron drills and began to produce large quantities of this article for trade with the Dutch and English, who in turn used it in the trade for skins among the peoples inland and in the north. Tools, scraps of manufacture and half-finished beads were found in abundance at Corchaug, Mohegan and Narraganset sites from the 17th century. Wampum became a real barter and was probably an important means of getting the Indians of southern New England into the European money economy.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cutchogue
  2. ↑ The Promise of Corchaug ( Memento from October 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Metoac History