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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Queen joins tribute to Indian chief

Katie Fretland Associated Press

LONDON – Queen Elizabeth II joined a group of American Indians on Wednesday to pay tribute to a Mohegan chief who traveled to England more than two centuries ago to complain directly to the king about British settlers encroaching on tribal lands.

Three tribesmen in turkey-feather headdresses lit a pipe filled with sweet grass and sage in a traditional burial ceremony for Mahomet Weyonomon, a sachem or leader, who died of smallpox in 1736 while waiting to see King George II. The tribal chief was buried in an unmarked grave in a south London churchyard.

“He didn’t have a proper funeral in our tribal tradition,” said Bruce “Two Dogs” Bozsum, of Uncasville, Conn. “This is what we want to give him now.”

Weyonomon crossed the Atlantic in 1735 with a letter that painted a stark picture of life for a tribe whose land was “reduced to less than 2 miles square out of the large territories for their hunting and planting.” Weyonomon wrote that, without the king’s help, his tribe would be “reduced to the miserable necessity of leaving their native lands.”

With the failure of his mission, the Mohegans steadily lost ground to what was then the colony of Connecticut. The tribe, which is recognized by the U.S. federal government with a reservation, has about 1,700 members.

Weynomon’s letter finally reached the gloved hand of a British monarch during Wednesday’s memorial ceremony that coincided with the traditional funeral blessing. Wearing a goose-feather bustle and deerskin leggings, Bozsum knelt before Queen Elizabeth II and gave her a copy of his ancestor’s handwritten plea.