While having a fairly large amount of evidence as to the time of the Great Iroquois League formation, we cannot tell for sure when the Mu-hee-can (Mohican) People came to occupy the valleys of the Hudson River. It might have happened not many decades after the Great Peace of the Iroquois was established, or maybe a century or so later.

According to some of the legends, the Mohican People’s ancestors came to the Hudson River after much wandering, seeking the lost homeland of ‘great waters’, finding it in this mighty river that ‘flowed and ebbed like no other’. They came to call it Muheconneok, which roughly means ‘The Waters That Are Never Still’. Here they settled, to become known to their neighbors as River People, or Mu-hee-can, Mohican as we know these people today.

But the Great League of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee, People of the Longhouse) had spread to the west, a strong alliance of five nations, an amazing democracy and a regional power that no one could overlook or dismiss lightly. Wary of strangers, this powerful league did not hesitate when it came to waging war, in defending their towns and villages, or, like in many cases, taking the warfare into the enemy territory.

Out of the Five Nations, the members of the Great League, the Mohawks (People of the Flint) were the ones responsible for the eastern neighbors of the confederacy and their behavior. Carrying the title of Keepers of the Eastern Door in the metaphorical Longhouse of the Great League, these people took their responsibilities seriously. The wars between the Mohawk and the Mohican People were reported to last for centuries, relentless and uncompromising.

Although culturally similar to other woodland Algonquin People, the Mohican’s way of life might have been reshaped by the centuries of the constant warfare with the neighboring Great League (Iroquois). At some point, the Mohicans were reported to form an association of four or five nations as well, not a confederacy but an alliance, for defensive purposes probably, and to maintain trading ties. Unlike the Great League, there was no mutual government and no sense of political body with strict sets of laws proscribing everyone’s conduct.

Governed by hereditary sachems of matrilineal descent, the villages – fairly large settlements of many bark houses, or sometimes small to mid-size longhouses – were advised by a council of the clan leaders. All in all, these people had only three clans – Bear, Wolf, and Turtle.

However, the warfare with their powerful neighbors to the west demanded a higher degree of organization. Through later centuries, when their alliance had been probably already organized, a general council of sachems would meet regularly at their capital of Skootuck (or Shodac, eastward to the present-day Albany) to decide important matters affecting the entire alliance. In times of war, the Mohican council passed its authority to a war chief chosen for his proven ability. For the duration of the conflict, the war leader exercised almost dictatorial power.

Next to the villages, that were usually located on the elevated ground, fortified to their best, large cornfields would spread, the regular diet of maize, beans and squash supplemented by hunting and fishing, and collecting of forest fruit. For reasons of safety, the Mohicans did to move to scattered hunting camps during the winter like other Algonquin and usually spent the colder months inside their fortified villages and towns.

And so, these people continued to be a force to be reckoned with, with passing of each century more so, as it seemed.

However, at the time featured in this novel, the idea of such cooperation might have only been beginning to form, promoted by some farsighted leaders, probably, not yet to bear fruit.