n.
or Mahican
North American Indian people living mostly in northeastern Wisconsin, U.S. Their original territory was the upper Hudson River valley above the Catskill Mountains.
Their name for themselves is Muh-he-con-neok, meaning "The People of the Waters That Are Never Still." The Mahican consisted of five major divisions governed by hereditary sachems (chiefs) assisted by elected counselors. They lived in strongholds of 2030 houses situated on hills or in woodlands. In 1664 they were forced by the Mohawk to move to what is now Stockbridge, Mass., where they became known as the Stockbridge Indians. Later they moved to Wisconsin. Some 1,200 people claimed sole Mohican descent in the 2000 U.S. census. James Fenimore Cooper drew a romanticized portrait of the declining Mohican in The Last of the Mohicans (1826).