Chapter 2: The Indians of Long Island -- -- Newsday.com

The First Long Islanders

They arrived thousands of years ago when the ice was finally gone, a trickle of big-game hunters who sought out shelter near freshwater streams and lakes. They had been walking for centuries, generation after generation, traveling imponderable distances, continent to continent. When they arrived in the land that divided into two forks at its easternmost end like the tail of a great fish, they were as far east as they could go.

Untangling a Myth

When school children learn Indian history, they read in textbooks that there were 13 tribes on Long Island at the time Europeans arrived to claim the land.

Masters of Agriculture

When Long Island was all theirs, Indians lived in small communal villages made up of grass-covered shelters that looked like large beehives. Their villages sat on necks of woodland and alongside tidal creeks that overflowed with food -- food so plentiful it could be scooped out by the basketful.

An American Mint, Even Before Coins

In the beginning, Long Island was Sewanhacky. This Algonquian word -- which roughly translates to ``Place of Shells'' -- is found in Dutch records of land purchases in western Long Island.

Gods of the Indians

Long Island Indians believed in an abundance of gods, in a devil who was responsible for evil, and in an afterlife in which their souls went west to live either in peace or in torment.

A Time to Live, A Time to Die

The Algonquian Indians of Long Island buried their dead with fanfare, exchanged gifts at weddings, partied at harvest time and held naming ceremonies for their children.

Keepers of a Lost Culture

Beulah Timothy is a ghost of history. So is her brother, Richard Snake, and their childhood friend, Alma Burgoon.

Jefferson's Lost Legacy

On June 13, 1791, two future presidents rode across Suffolk County on horseback. Thomas Jefferson, who 15 years earlier wrote the Declaration of Independence, and who nine years later would be elected the third president of the United States, was one of the riders. On this day, he was secretary of state under President George Washington.

Indian Names Were His Fame

Early in this century, a Sag Harbor pharmacist tried to give Long Island back its Indian identity.

Dinner, and a Snack, Too

By the time Europeans landed, there were six varieties -- white, blue, red, yellow, orange and multicolor. ``It is the common food of all,'' Dutch settler Adriaen van der Donck observed. ``Young and old eat it; and they are so well accustomed to it, and fond of it, that when they visit our people, or each other, they consider themselves neglected unless they are treated with sappaen,'' or samp.

Keeping Cultures Alive

Robert Cooper has spent years assembling the scattered pieces of his people's history. He has become an archaeologist of memories - collecting genealogies, family letters, burial records, photographs, anything that will help him understand the rich past of the Montaukett people.

The Promise of Corchaug

Deep in the woods alongside a salt creek on the North Fork, history is buried under a carpet of top soil and decayed leaves.

A Visitor From Europe

Early in the 16th Century, European explorers began to sail west across the mysterious vastness of the Atlantic Ocean, drawn by stories of virgin lands overflowing with riches, and schools of fish so thick they could thwart a ship's passage.

Half Moon Arriving

A group of Indians was fishing in the harbor when the Half Moon drifted ghostlike over the horizon. They thought the ship was a floating house, and the man on the deck -- who wore a bright, red jacket -- an evil spirit.

Stranded in a Strange Land

Few visitors to New York had more problems than Adrian Block. Four years after Henry Hudson explored the big river that now bears his name, a Dutch ship called the Tiger left Holland en route for the same waters. Block, an enterprising Dutchman who had made two earlier visits to these waters, was the captain.

Property of the Netherlands

As he launched his new ship, Adrian Block let the tide carry the Restless into New York Harbor. If he said something to his crew as they departed, it is not recorded in history. He could not wish away the realities of geography -- their homes in the Netherlands were 3,600 miles away across the ocean.

Putting Down Roots

What Dutch business interests heard when Adrian Block returned to the Netherlands and told his story about spending the winter on Manhattan Island electrified them. Block had seen the future -- a country filled with furs and ready to be conquered, settled and exploited.

The Dutch Paper Chase

Charles Gehring was translating Dutch documents from the 17th Century when he found an account that he couldn't forget. It concerned a trip some Dutch businessmen made from Albany to western New York in the later part of the century.

Chapter 2: The Indians of Long Island