As Mr. Eliot in the foregoing letters has testified to what extent he was indebted to this young Indian, there can arise no question whatever as to the great influence which the instruction and information thus obtained must have had on his subsequent knowledge of the Indian language. It also indicates how close an affinity and how little dialectical difference existed between the language spoken by the eastern Long Island Indians and that of the Natick or Massachusetts Indians to which his works are credited. In fact, the identity between these two dialects is closer than exists between either of them and the Narragansett of Roger Williams, as can be easily proven by comparison. Again, Eliot, in his grammar twenty years afterward, as I have before quoted, by so confessing his obligation to his young teacher to the total exclusion of Job Nesutan, who took his place,[8] shows how he appreciated the instruction first imparted. Eliot having written, in the winter of 1648-49, that he taught this Indian how to read and to write, which he quickly learned, though he knew not what use he then made of the knowledge, it becomes apparent to all that he had then departed, to Eliot's great regret, from the scene of Eliot's labors in Massachusetts; and, as seems to have been the case, had returned to the home of his ancestors on Long Island sometime between the fall of 1646, when he was with Eliot in Waban's wigwam, and the winter of 1649, when Eliot wrote.[9] Whether his time as a servant had expired, or whether he longed for the country of his youth and childhood, we perhaps shall never learn.
At this point the interesting question arises, Can we identify any one of the Long Island Indians of this period with the "interpreter" or "pregnant witted young man" of John Eliot? Here it must be conceded that the evidence is entirely circumstantial and not direct; but withal so strong and so convincing as to make me a firm believer in its truth, as I shall set it forth before you.
I shall begin my exposition with the Indian deed of the East Hampton township, dated April 29, 1648,[10] where we find, by the power acquired by the grantees from the Farrett mortgage of 1641,[11] that Thomas Stanton made a purchase from the Indians for Theophilus Eaton, Esq., Governor of the Colony of New Haven, and Edward Hopkins, Esq., Governor of the Colony of Connecticut, and their associates "for all that tract of land lyinge from the bounds of the Inhabitants of Southampton, unto the East side of Napeak, next unto Meuntacut high land, with the whole breadth from sea to sea, etc.," this conveyance is signed by the four Sachems of Eastern Long Island—to wit: Poggatacut,[12] the Sachem of Munhansett; Wyandanch,[13] the Sachem of Meuntacut; Momoweta,[14] the Sachem of Corchake; Nowedonah,[15] the Sachem of Shinecok, and their marks are witnessed by Cheekanoo, who is thereon stated to have been "their Interpreter."[16]
Here we find confronting us, not only a remarkable, but a very unusual circumstance, in the fact that an Indian of Long Island, who is called "Cheekanoo," is acting as an interpreter for these four Sachems, together with Thomas Stanton,[17] another well-known interpreter of the Colonies, as an intermediary in making the purchase. It is very clear to me, and I think it will be to all, that if this Indian was sufficiently learned to speak English, and so intelligent as to act as an interpreter, with all such a qualification would indicate, in 1648, the year before Eliot commended his ingenious teacher, and within the time he seems to have returned to Long Island, he must have acquired his knowledge from someone who had taken great pains in bestowing it, and that one must have been John Eliot. We have found that Eliot does not mention him by name in existing letters; but, as before quoted, simply calls him his "Interpreter"; therefore, let us learn how a translation of his Long Island appellation will bear on this question.
This name, Cheekanoo, Cockenoe, Chickino, Chekkonnow, or Cockoo,—no matter how varied in the records of Long Island and elsewhere, for every Town Clerk or Recorder, with but a limited or no knowledge of the Indian tongue and its true sounds, wrote down the name as it suited him, and seldom twice alike even on the same page,—finds its parallel sounds in the Massachusetts of both Eliot and Cotton, in the verb kuhkinneau, or kehkinnoo, "he marks, observes, takes knowledge, instructs, or imitates";[18] hence, "he interprets," and therefore indicating by a free translation "an interpreter or teacher"; this word in its primitive form occurs in all dialects of the same linguistic family—that is, the Algonquian—in an infinite number of compounds, denoting "a scholar; teacher; a thing signified; I say what he says, i. e., repeat after him," etc.[19]
These I may call inferential marks by the wayside, and with what is to follow are surely corroborative evidence strong enough to enable me to assume that I am on the right trail, and that "Cheekanoo" and John Eliot's young man were one and the same individual. In its acceptance it becomes obvious that he must have been so termed before the date of the East Hampton conveyance, while still with Eliot in Massachusetts. Indian personal names were employed to denote some remarkable event in their lives, and having been a teacher and an interpreter of Eliot's, and continuing in the same line afterward, which gave him greater celebrity, it was natural that he should retain the name throughout his life.
A little over two weeks after the East Hampton transaction, by a deed dated May 16, 1648[20] (O. S.), Mammawetough, the Sachem of Corchauge, with the possible assistance of our interpreter, who, it seems to me, could not have been dispensed with on such an occasion, conveys Hashamomuck neck—which included all the land to the eastward of Pipe's Neck creek, in Southold town, on which the villages of Greenport, East Marion, and Orient are located, together with Plum Island—to Theophilus Eaton, Stephen Goodyeare, and Captain Malbow of New Haven. This is known as the Indian deed for the "Oyster Ponds," and while Cheekanoo's name does not appear on this copy of a copy, for the original has long been lost, it is possible that it may be disguised in the name of one of the witnesses, Pitchamock.
While we may infer from the foregoing documents that his services must have been necessarily in constant demand by the colonists in their interviews with the natives, during the four years following the making of these deeds, we do not find him again on record until February 25, 1652[21] (O. S., February 15, 1651), when he is identically employed as at East Hampton, by the proprietors of Norwalk, Conn., probably on the recommendation of the authorities at New Haven; and his name appears among the grantors, in two places on the Indian deed for the Norwalk plantation as "Cockenoe-de-Long Island." But, as he did not sign the conveyance, it shows that he had no vested rights therein, but simply acted for the whites and Indians as their interpreter. From the possible fact that he perhaps erected his wigwam there during this winter and spring of 1651-52, thus giving it a distinctive appellation, an island in the Long Island sound off Westport, Conn., near the mouth of the Saugatuck river, bears his name in the possessive as "Cockenoe's Island" to this day, as will be noted by consulting a Coast Survey chart. That the name was bestowed in his time is proven by the record "that it was agreed (in 1672) that the said Island called Cockenoe is to lie common for the use of the town as all the other Islands are."[22] This island is one of the largest and most easterly of the group known as the "Norwalk Islands," or as they were designated by the early Dutch navigators, the Archipelago.[23] The fact that his name is displayed on this deed for Norwalk, and as the name for this island, has been a puzzle to many historians; but that it does so appear is easily accounted for, when we know what his abilities were, and why he was there.
On September 2, 1652,[24] the fall of the year that he was at Norwalk, he appeared before the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, then assembled at Hartford, as their records bear witness in the following language: "Whereas we were informed by Checkanoe an Indian of Menhansick Island, on behalf of the Indian inhabitants of said island, that they are disturbed in their possession by Captain Middleton and his agents, upon pretense of a purchase from Mr. Goodyeare of New Haven, who bought the same of one Mr. Forrett, a scotchman, and by vertue thereof the said Indians are threatened to be forced off the said island and to seek an habitation where they can get it; the said Indians deny that they sold the said island to the said Forrett; and that the said Forrett was a poor man, not able to purchase it, but the said Indians gave to the said Forrett some part of the said Island and marked it out by some trees; yet never, that themselves be deprived of their habitation there, and therefore they desired that the Commissioners (they being their tributaries) to see they have justice in the premises, the Commissioners therefore, in regard the said Mr. Goodyeare is not present, and that he is of New Haven jurisdiction, and at their Court, to hear to complaint of the said Indians, and to satisfy the said Indians if they can, if not to certify the Commissioners at the next meeting, the truth of the premises; that some further order may be taken therein as shall be meet."