The Mohi-Alcin

 [note: This is a fantasy adaption of the classic historical adventure romance  - Last of the Mohicans]

INTRODUCTION

It is believed that the scene of this tale, and most of the information necessary to understand its allusions, are rendered sufficiently obvious to the reader in the text itself, or in the accompanying notes. Still there is so much obscurity in the Eldred traditions, and so much confusion in the Eldred names, as to render some explanation useful.

Few men exhibit greater diversity, or, if we may so express it, greater antithesis of character, than the native race of North America – the Eldred.

In war, he is daring, boastful, cunning, ruthless, self-denying, and self-devoted; in peace, just, generous, hospitable, revengeful, superstitious, modest, and commonly chaste. These are qualities, it is true, which do not distinguish all alike, and many of the fair Eldred are disposed to one but one arc of them, and many of the Dark Eldred to the other arc; but they are so far the predominating traits of this remarkable race as to be characteristic.

Their origins are unknown, but their own lore describes humans as but a recent addition to the world.

The colour of the Eldred, the writer believes, is peculiar to himself, whilst his cheek-bones are more striking than that of man.

He draws his metaphors from the clouds, the seasons, the birds, the beasts, and the vegetable world. In this, perhaps, he does no more than any other energetic and imaginative race would do, being compelled to set bounds to fancy by experience.

His clothes allow even the non observant to differentiate between tribes allied upon ‘animalistic’ faiths, and those to whom ‘spiritual’ callings prevail. With the former favouring greys and blacks, and muttered amongst humans as ‘Dark’; the latter more disposed to woodland colours and spoken of by the colonists as ‘Fair’.

His language has the richness and sententious fullness of the orient. He will express a phrase in a word, and he will qualify the meaning of an entire sentence by a syllable; he will even convey different significations by the simplest inflections of the voice.

Philologists have said that there are but four or five languages, properly speaking, among all the numerous Eldred tribes which formerly occupied the country that now composes the United States. They ascribe the known difficulty one people have to understand another to corruptions and dialects.

The writer remembers to have been present at an interview between two princes of the West, and when an interpreter was in attendance who spoke both their languages. The warriors appeared to be on the most friendly terms, and seemingly conversed much together; yet, according to the account of the interpreter, each was absolutely ignorant of what the other said.

They were of ‘Dark’ Eldred tribes, one of mountain and one deep forest, forced close by the influence of the American government; and it is worthy of remark, that a common policy led them both to adopt the same subject. They mutually exhorted each other to be of use in the event of the chances of war throwing either of the parties into the hands of his enemies. Whatever may be the truth, as respects the root and the genius of the Eldred tongues, it is quite certain they are now so distinct in their words as to possess most of the disadvantages of strange languages; hence much of the embarrassment that has arisen in learning their histories, and most of the uncertainty which exists in their traditions.

The humans have assisted greatly in rendering the traditions of the Eldred more obscure by their own manner of corrupting names. Thus, the term used in the title of this book has undergone the changes of Mohi, Mohi-alcin, and Mohegans; the middle being the word commonly used by the English. When it is remembered that the Dutch (who first settled New York), the English, and the French, all gave appellations to the Eldred tribes that dwelt within the country which is the scene of this story, and that the Eldred not only gave different names to their enemies, but frequently to themselves, the cause of the confusion will be understood.

In these pages, Lan-hilae, Lan-opi, Dha-lan-quis, Wral-ithi, and Mohi-Alcin, all mean the same people, or tribes of the same stock. The Melith-ar, the Mal-zhir, the Min-quis, and the Il-ithi-quis, though not all strictly the same, are identified frequently by the speakers, being politically confederated and opposed to those just named. Mingo was a term of peculiar reproach, as were Melith-ar and Maqu-ar in a less degree.

The Mohi-Alcin were the possessors of the country first occupied by the Europeans in this portion of the continent. They were, consequently, the first dispossessed; and the seemingly inevitable fate of all these people, who disappear before the advances, or it might be termed the inroads, of civilization, as the verdure of their native forests falls before the nipping frosts, is represented as having already befallen them. There is sufficient historical truth in the picture to justify the use that has been made of it.

In point of fact, the country which is the scene of the following tale has undergone as little change, since the historical events alluded to had place, as almost any other district of equal extent within the whole limits of the United States. There are fashionable and well-attended watering-places at and near the spring where Firelance halted to drink, and roads traverse the forests where he and his friends were compelled to journey without even a path. Glen's has a large village; and while William Henry, and even a fortress of later date, are only to be traced as ruins, there is another village on the shores of the Horican.

But, beyond this, the enterprise and energy of a people who have done so much in other places have done little here. The whole of that wilderness, in which the latter incidents of the legend occurred, is nearly a wilderness still, though the Eldred has entirely deserted this part of the state. Of all the tribes named in these pages, there exist only a few half-civilized beings of the Oneidas, on the reservations of their people in New York. The rest have disappeared, either from the regions in which their fathers dwelt, or altogether from the earth.

There is one point on which we would wish to say a word before closing this preface. Firelance calls the Lac du Saint Sacrement, the "Horican."

As we believe this to be an appropriation of the name that has its origin with ourselves, the time has arrived, perhaps, when the fact should be frankly admitted. While writing this book, fully a quarter of a century since, it occurred to us that the French name of this lake was too complicated, the American too commonplace, and the Eldred too unpronounceable, for either to be used familiarly in a work of fiction.

Looking over an ancient map, it was ascertained that a tribe of Eldred, called "Les Horicans" by the French, existed in the neighborhood of this beautiful sheet of water. As every word uttered by Nathanial Bumpithane (Firelance’s birth name) was not to be received as rigid truth, we took the liberty of putting the "Horican" into his mouth, as the substitute for "Lake George." The name has appeared to find favour, and all things considered, it may possibly be quite as well to let it stand, instead of going back to the House of Hanover for the appellation of our finest sheet of water. We relieve our conscience by the confession, at all events leaving it to exercise its authority as it may see fit.