Ninnimissinuok

Historical Ninnimissinuok groups of Southern New England, except Pawtucket

Ninnimissinuok is indigenous term, to refer to Native Americans of southern New England region.[1][2] These people include the Pawtucket, Massachusett, Nipmuck, Pokanoket, Niantic, Mohegan and Pequot, as well as the people of western Connecticut and Long Island. This term, a variation of the Narragansett word Ninnimissinûwock, which means roughly 'people', connotes familiarity and shared identity.[3]

The use of the term Ninnimissinuok does not imply, however, a homogeneity of social forms or motivations among the various groups so labeled. The region now known as southern New England was home to a complex variety of communities, sometimes grouped into larger polities, which can be divided into at least three basic ecological subregions: the coastal, the riverine and the uplands. Although sharing an underlying cosmology, similar languages, and a long history, the peoples living in each of these regions developed distinctive social and economic adaptations.[2]

References

  1. ↑ Trumbull James Hammond (1903). Natick Dictionary. p. 306.
  2. 1 2 Kathleen J. Bragdon (1996). Native People Southern New England, 1500-1650. pp. xi–xiii.
  3. ↑ Williams Roger (1643). A Key into the Language of America. p. A3.
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