Chingachgook | |
---|---|
Leatherstocking Tales/The Last of the Mohicans character | |
First appearance | The Pioneers |
Last appearance | The Deerslayer |
Created by | James Fenimore Cooper |
In-universe information | |
Alias | Le Gros Serpent, Indian John, John Mohican |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Chief |
Spouse | Wah-ta-Wah (wife) |
Children | Uncas (son) |
Religion | Mahican tradition, Moravian convert |
Nationality | Mahican |
Chingachgook is a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales , including his 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans . Chingachgook was a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero, Natty Bumppo. In The Deerslayer , Chingachgook married Wah-ta-Wah, who had a son with him named Uncas, but died while she was still young. Uncas, who was at his birth "last of the Mohicans", [1] grew to manhood but was killed in a battle with the Huron warrior Magua. Chingachgook died as an old man in the novel The Pioneers , which makes him the actual "last of the Mohicans," having outlived his son.
In the series The Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper, Chingachgook is the best friend and companion of the main character Natty Bumppo, aka Hawkeye. He appears in The Deerslayer , [2] The Last of the Mohicans , [3] The Pathfinder , [4] and The Pioneers . [5] He is characterized by his skills as a warrior and forester, his bravery, his wisdom, and his pride for his tribe.
Chingachgook is a major character in Song of the Mohicans by Paul Block (Bantam Books, 1985, ISBN 978-0553565584), a sequel to The Last of the Mohicans. Taking up the story a few days after Uncas' death and burial, it recounts the adventures of Hawkeye and Chingachgook as they travel north to discover the connection between an Oneida brave and the Mohican tribe, and whether a sachem truly holds the key to the ultimate fate of the Mohicans.
Chingachgook is said to have been modeled after a real-life wandering Mohican basket maker and hunter named Captain John. The fictional character, occasionally called John Mohegan in the series, was an idealized embodiment of the traditional noble savage. The French often refer to Chingachgook as "Le Gros Serpent", the Great Snake, because he understands the winding ways of men's nature and he can strike a sudden, deadly blow. [3]
The name is derived from the Lenape language, which is closely related to the Mohican language. In Lenape, xinkw- means 'big' [6] and xkuk means 'snake'. [7] [8] Professor William A. Starna, of SUNY Oneonta, says the initial "ch" sound would be pronounced more like the German guttural "h" than an English "ch". [9] The digraph ⟨ch⟩ in the spelling used by John Heckewelder, the source for the name, and the letter ⟨x⟩ in modern Lenape spelling both represent the voiceless velar fricative sound [x] (as in "Bach"), not the voiceless palato-alveolar affricate [t͡ʃ] (as in "church").
Cooper got the name from Heckewelder's book History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighboring States [10] (1818), which cited a Lenape word as "chingachgook" (in Heckewelder's spelling which was influenced by German), meaning "a large snake". He gave this word as such in the context of how to use the adjective xinkwi (pronounced [xiŋɡwi] ) 'large', which Heckewelder spelled chingue. [11] [12]
The first film portrayal of Chingachgook was by Wallace Reid in a 1913 film version of The Deerslayer.
Bela Lugosi played Chingachgook in two German silent films, Lederstrumpf, 1. Teil: Der Wildtöter und Chingachgook (Leatherstocking 1: The Deerslayer and Chingachgook ) and Lederstrumpf, 2. Teil: Der Letzte der Mohikaner (Leatherstocking 2: The Last of the Mohicans ), both filmed in 1920.
Jay Silverheels, best known for his role as Tonto on The Lone Ranger , played Chingachgook in the 1953 film version of The Pathfinder .
Lon Chaney Jr. played Chingachgook in the 1957 TV series Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans .
Chingachgook, played by Gojko Mitić, was the main character of an East German western, Chingachgook the Great Serpent (1967), based on Cooper's novels.
In the BBC miniseries The Last of the Mohicans and The Pathfinder, Chingachgook was played by John Abineri.
Chingachgook was played by Ned Romero in the TV versions of The Last of the Mohicans (1977) and The Deerslayer (1978), by Russell Means in the 1992 film adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans , by Rodney A. Grant in the 1994 TV series Hawkeye and by Graham Greene in the 1996 TV version of The Pathfinder.
Many films portray Chingachgook with long hair, braided or flowing. A notable exception is the 1920 adaptation which faithfully represents him with a tuft on his shaved head, according to the novel.
In the Ordeal Ceremony of the Order of the Arrow, the National Honor Society of the Boy Scouts of America, the Legend of the Order refers to an imaginary Lenni Lenape chief named Chingachgook. In the legend, Chingachgook's son, Uncas, is the original propagator of the Order. Chingachgook wanted to create a band of volunteers from all the nations of the Delaware River valley to support and protect their collective interests. Uncas volunteered to be the first member of such a group, and thus the Order of the Arrow was founded.
According to the Boy Scouts of America's Ordeal Ceremony, the preferred pronunciation of the name is "ching-gatch-gook". [13]
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1920 American silent adventure drama film written by Robert A. Dillon, adapted from James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. Clarence Brown and Maurice Tourneur co-directed the film. It is a story of two English sisters meeting danger on the frontier of the American colonies, in and around the fort commanded by their father. The adventure film stars Wallace Beery, Barbara Bedford, Lillian Hall, Alan Roscoe and Boris Karloff in one of his earliest silent film roles. Barbara Bedford later married her co-star in the film, Alan Roscoe in real life. The production was shot near Big Bear Lake and in Yosemite Valley.
James Fenimore Cooper was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonial and indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought him fame and fortune. He lived much of his boyhood and his last fifteen years in Cooperstown, New York, which was founded by his father William Cooper on property that he owned. Cooper became a member of the Episcopal Church shortly before his death and contributed generously to it. He attended Yale University for three years, where he was a member of the Linonian Society.
The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757 is an 1826 historical romance novel by James Fenimore Cooper. It is the second book of the Leatherstocking Tales pentalogy and the best known to contemporary audiences. The Pathfinder, published 14 years later in 1840, is its sequel; its prequel, The Deerslayer, was published a year after The Pathfinder. The Last of the Mohicans is set in 1757, during the French and Indian War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of North America. During this war, both the French and the British used Native American allies, but the French were particularly dependent; they were outnumbered in the Northeast frontier areas by the British. Specifically, the events of the novel are set immediately before, during, and after the Siege of Fort William Henry.
Uncas was a sachem of the Mohegans who made the Mohegans the leading regional Indian tribe in lower Connecticut, through his alliance with the New England colonists against other Indian tribes.
Magua is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. This historical novel is set at the time of the French and Indian War. A Huron Indian chief, he is also known by the French alias "Le Renard Subtil".
The Leatherstocking Tales is a series of five novels by American writer James Fenimore Cooper, set in the eighteenth-century era of development in the primarily former Iroquois areas in central New York. Each novel features Natty Bumppo, a frontiersman known to European-American settlers as "Leatherstocking", "The Pathfinder", and "the trapper". Native Americans call him "Deerslayer", "La Longue Carabine", and "Hawkeye".
The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale is an 1823 historical novel by American writer James Fenimore Cooper. It was the first of five novels published which became known as the Leatherstocking Tales. The Pioneers is the fourth novel in terms of the chronology of the novels' plots.
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1992 American epic historical drama film produced and directed by Michael Mann, who co-wrote the screenplay with Christopher Crowe, based on the 1826 novel of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper and its 1936 film adaptation. The film is set in 1757 during the French and Indian War. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe, and Jodhi May in the leading roles, and features Russell Means, Wes Studi, Eric Schweig, Steven Waddington, Maurice Roëves and Patrice Chéreau.
The Deerslayer, or The First War-Path was James Fenimore Cooper's fifth and last novel published in 1841 in his Leatherstocking Tales. Its 1740–1745 time period makes it the first installment chronologically and in the lifetime of the hero of the Leatherstocking tales, Natty Bumppo. The novel's setting on Otsego Lake in central, upstate New York, is the same as that of The Pioneers, the first of the Leatherstocking Tales to be published (1823). The Deerslayer is considered to be the prequel to the rest of the series. Fenimore Cooper begins his work by relating the astonishing advance of civilization in New York State, which is the setting of four of his five Leatherstocking Tales.
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1932 American pre-Code Mascot movie serial based on the 1826 novel The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.
The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea is a historical novel by American author James Fenimore Cooper, first published in 1840. It is the fourth novel Cooper wrote featuring Natty Bumppo, his fictitious frontier hero, and the third chronological episode of the Leatherstocking Tales. The inland sea of the title is Lake Ontario.
The Prairie: A Tale (1827) is a novel by James Fenimore Cooper, the third novel written by him featuring Natty Bumppo. His fictitious frontier hero Bumppo is never called by his name, but is instead referred to as "the trapper" or "the old man". Chronologically The Prairie is the fifth and final installment of the Leatherstocking Tales, though it was published before The Pathfinder (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841). It depicts Natty in the final year of his life, still proving helpful to people in distress on the American frontier. The book frequently references characters and events from the two books previously published in the Leatherstocking Tales as well as the two which Cooper would not write for more than ten years. Continuity with The Last of the Mohicans is indicated by the appearance of the grandson of Duncan and Alice Heyward, as well as the noble Pawnee chief Hard Heart, whose name is English for the French nickname for the Delaware, le Coeur-dur.
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1936 American historical western adventure film directed by George B. Seitz and starring Randolph Scott, Binnie Barnes and Henry Wilcoxon. The screenplay by Philip Dunne was based on the 1826 novel of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper. It was produced by Edward Small and distributed by United Artists.
Nathaniel "Natty" Bumppo is a fictional character and the protagonist of James Fenimore Cooper's pentalogy of novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales. He appears throughout the series as an archetypal American ranger, and has been portrayed many times in a variety of media in popular culture.
The Deerslayer and Chingachgook is the feature-length first part of the two-part 1920 German silent Western film Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking), directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela Lugosi. It is based on the 1841 novel The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. The second part is called The Last of the Mohicans.
The Last of the Mohicans is the feature-length second part of the 1920 German silent Western film Lederstrumpf (Leatherstocking) directed by Arthur Wellin and featuring Bela Lugosi and Emil Mamalock. Bela Lugosi played the Indian Chingachgook, one of his most unusual roles, and Emil Mamalock played Hawkeye, the Deerslayer. It is based on James Fenimore Cooper's 1826 novel of the same name. The first part is The Deerslayer and Chingachgook.
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1971 BBC serial, based on the 1826 novel of the same name by James Fenimore Cooper, directed by David Maloney.
Hawkeye is a Canadian adventure-Western television series created by Kim LeMasters. The series aired in syndication for one season from 1994 to 1995, and was produced by Stephen J. Cannell. It was filmed in North Vancouver and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The Last of the Mohicans is a 1968 internationally co-produced Western film, co-directed by Jean Dréville, Pierre Gaspard-Huit and Sergiu Nicolaescu. It was the second episode of the European TV miniseries Leatherstocking Tales.
Last of the Redskins is a 1947 American Western film, directed by George Sherman and starring Joh Hall and Michael O'Shea. The film was shot in Vitacolor, but released in Cinecolor.