Regarding Interest in Native American Mascots and the Morgantown High School "Mohigan"
Text Courtesy WVU Native American Studies Program
It is common to find variations of both historical and contemporary spellings of
a tribe's name because such names were translated phonetically into the English
language. Thus one could assume the names "Mohegan," "Mohican," and "Mohigan" (the
MHS team name) are all references to the same tribe. In fact, the Mohicans and
Mohegans link their origins to the Lenape (Delaware) Indians of the Northeast.
The Stockbridge Munsee Mohicans' tribal website details a complex history
of displacement and removal to present-day Wisconsin from their ancestral lands
in the Northeast, where the citizens of the Mohegan Tribe still live. More information
on the history of these two tribes is available at the following links:
Morgantown
High School history and advocates for retaining the mascot suggest the team name
"Mohigan" (pronounced Moheegan, just like "Mohegan"), is a fictional term. It was
apparently first used as the name of the annual yearbook, composed of the first
letters in the words " Morgantown High Annual." Subsequently, "Mohigan" was adopted
as the school's team name, incorporating stereotypical Native American imagery
such as a large feather headdress associated not with the Eastern Woodlands tribes,
but appropriated from Plains Indians traditions.
Both the Stockbridge Munsee Mohicans
and the Mohegan Tribe, along with innumerable other federally-recognized tribes
and Native American organizations such as the National Congress of American Indians,
as well as the NAACP, NCAA, American Psychological Association, various national
religious organizations such as the United Methodist Church, et al., all oppose
the continuation of such Native American mascots.