f _Munhansett_; _Wyandanch_,[13]
the Sachem of _Meuntacut_; _Momoweta_,[14] the Sachem of _Corchake_;
_Nowedonah_,[15] the Sachem of _Shinecok_, and their marks are
witnessed by _Cheekanoo_, who is thereon stated to have been "_their
Interpreter_."[16]

Here we find confronting us, not only a remarkable, but a very unusual
circumstance, in the fact that an Indian of Long Island, who is called
"_Cheekanoo_," is acting as an interpreter for these four Sachems,
together with Thomas Stanton,[17] another well-known interpreter of
the Colonies, as an intermediary in making the purchase. It is very
clear to me, and I think it will be to all, that if this Indian was
sufficiently learned to speak English, and so intelligent as to act as
an interpreter, with all such a qualification would indicate, in 1648,
the year before Eliot commended his ingenious teacher, and within the
time he seems to have returned to Long Island, he must have acquired
his knowledge from someone who had taken great pains in bestowing it,
and that one must have been John Eliot. We have found that Eliot does
not mention him by name in existing letters; but, as before quoted,
simply calls him his "Interpreter"; therefore, let us learn how a
translation of his Long Island appellation will bear on this question.

This name, _Cheekanoo_, _Cockenoe_, _Chickino_, _Chekkonnow_, or
_Cockoo_,--no matter how varied in the records of Long Island and
elsewhere, for every Town Clerk or Recorder, with but a limited or no
knowledge of the Indian tongue and its true sounds, wrote down the
name as it suited him, and seldom twice alike even on the same
page,--finds its parallel sounds in the Massachusetts of both Eliot
and Cotton, in the verb _kuhkinneau_, or _kehkinnoo_, "he marks,
observes, takes knowledge, instructs, or imitates";[18] hence, "he
interprets," and therefore indicating by a free translation "an
interpreter or teacher"; this word in its primitive form occurs in all
dialects of the same linguistic family--that is, the Algonquian--in an
infinite number of compounds, denoting "a scholar; teacher; a thing
signified; I say what he says, _i. e._, repeat after him," etc.[19]

These I may call inferential marks by the wayside, and with what is to
follow are surely corroborative evidence strong enough to enable me to
assume that I am on the right trail, and that "_Cheekanoo_" and John
Eliot's young man were one and the same individual. In its acceptance
it becomes