Chingachgook

For the United States Navy ship, see USS Chingachgook (SP-35).

Gojko Mitic playing Chingachgook the Great Serpent, in an eponymous East German Western (1967)

Chingachgook was a fictional character in four of James Fenimore Cooper's five Leatherstocking Tales, a lone Mohican chief and companion of the series' hero Natty Bumppo. Chingachgook married Wah-ta-Wah who bore him a son Uncas, but she died young. Uncas, at his birth "last of the Mohicans"^[1] grew to manhood but was killed in a battle with renegade Magua. Chingachgook dies as an old man in the novel The Pioneers and so is the actual Last of the Mohicans, having outlived his son.

Chingachgook is said to have been modeled after a real-life wandering Mahican 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 Grand Serpent”, the Great Snake, because he understands the winding ways of men's nature and he can strike a sudden, deadly blow.^[2]

In the initiation ritual of the Order of the Arrow, a program of the Boy Scouts of America, the Legend of the Order borrows the character of Chingachgook from Cooper's novels, and casts Chingachgook in the role of the Order's sole founder. The character of Uncas, son of Chingachgook, is cast as the original propagator the Order. Because the Order was founded in eastern Pennsylvania, the two characters are recreated as members of the Unami Clan of the Delaware (Lenni Lenapé), rather than as members of the Mohican.

Portrayals in Film and Television

The very 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. Chingachgook, played by Gojko Mitic, was the main character of a popular East German Western, Chingachgook the Great Serpent (1967), based on Cooper's novels. Jay Silverheels, who played 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. In the BBC miniseries The Last of the Mohicans and The Pathfinder, Chingachgook was played by John Abineri. Most recently, Chingachgook has been played by Ned Romero in the TV versions of 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.

References

1. ^ "Uncas will be the last pure-blooded Mohican because there are no pure-blooded Mohican women for him to marry." University of Houston study guide
2. ^ http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/Indians/last.html