“The names of the river and valley were usurped by a man named Hudson, whose people came from the east and, in the comparative blink of an eye, nearly ended a story that stretches back perhaps 13,000 years.” The word Mohican in their native tongue Algonquian translates to “the people of the waters that are never still.” The body of water it refers to is the Hudson River(Muh-he-kun-ne-tuk), and the Mohican people are a Native American tribe indigenous to the land that we now inhabit. The original Mohican homeland, the area they lived in for thousands of years before the Dutch arrived, extended from what is now Lake Champlain south to Manhattan and on both sides of the Mahicannituck (Hudson River), west to Schoharie Creek and east into Massachusetts, Vermont, and Connecticut. The general Troy area was called “Paanpack,” and within that it was split into four parcels of land: the areas around Poesten Kill (Panhooseck) where owned by Skiwias, Peyhaunet owned the areas around Wynantskill (Paampack–”The Great Meadow”), Annape owned what is now downtown and south troy, and Pacquolapiet owned everything south of WynantsKill. Before colonisation, the Mohican people consisted of at least five bands, which were then divided into three clans, each governed by elected sachems (chiefs).
Now, the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohican people have settled in Shawano County, near Bowler, Wisconsin. The tribal population is roughly 1,500, and the reservation consists of 40,000 acres, 16,000 of which are held in trust by the U.S. Department of the Interior. They acquired this land in 1856 by treaty from their northern neighbour the Menominee Tribe. Tribal Member Edwin Martin created a project titled “Many Trials,” a reference to how the Mohican people were pushed from the Eastern seaboard across the country, forced to uproot and move many times before they settled in Shawano County. The symbol for his project symbolises “endurance, strength, and hope–from a long suffering, proud, and determined people.