Ninnimissinuok
Ninnimissinuok is indigenous term, to refer to Native Americans of southern New England region.[1][2] These people include the Pawtucket, Massachusett, Nipmuck, Pokanoket, Niantic, Mohegan and Pequot, as well as the people of western Connecticut and Long Island. This term, a variation of the Narragansett word Ninnimissinûwock, which means roughly 'people', connotes familiarity and shared identity.[3]
The use of the term Ninnimissinuok does not imply, however, a homogeneity of social forms or motivations among the various groups so labeled. The region now known as southern New England was home to a complex variety of communities, sometimes grouped into larger polities, which can be divided into at least three basic ecological subregions: the coastal, the riverine and the uplands. Although sharing an underlying cosmology, similar languages, and a long history, the peoples living in each of these regions developed distinctive social and economic adaptations.[2]