Vanished Worlds, Enduring People

Fidelia A. H. Fielding. Diaries and Religious Texts Written in the Mohegan Language, 1902-1904. [view first image] | [download a PDF of the first diary] | [view more Fielding diaries]

Fielding (1827-1908), the last speaker of the Mohegan-Pequot language, lived at Mohegan, near Norwich, Connecticut. She kept the Mohegan of her childhood fresh by speaking with her sister, or talking to herself. In the later years of her life, she cooperated with anthropologist Frank G. Speck, providing him with a lexicon of 446 Mohegan-Pequot words, and narrating several Mohegan tales. During the years 1902 to 1904 she made occasional notes in her diary, written in Mohegan, along with transcriptions of religious texts in that language. Today the Mohegans and Pequots of Connecticut draw on the Fielding-Speck collaboration and her diaries to study their language.