Narragansett Travel Guide

For other uses of the term, see Narragansett (disambiguation). The Narragansett tribe, or more accurately Nahahiganseck Sovereign Nation, are a Native American tribe who controlled the area surrounding Narragansett Bay in present-day Rhode Island, and also portions of Connecticut, and eastern Massachusetts. The Nahahiganseck culture has existed in the region for thousands of years, trading extensively, and the town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, is named after them. Although they suffered greatly from King Philip's War, the Narragansett absorbed members of other tribes to reboost numbers, especially the Niantic tribe, now fully merged into the Narragansett. According to tribal rolls there are approximately 2,400 members of the Narragansett Tribe today.
The museum of the Nahahiganseck is the Tomaquag Indian Memorial Museum in Exeter, Rhode Island. The school for the Nahahiganseck children is the Nuweetooun School at the same museum.
The word "Narragansett" means, literally, "the people of/at the small, narrow point." Some members still speak the original Algonquian language although it had died out and was only partially reclaimed from books in the early 20th century. The Nahahganseck spoke a Y-dialect of the Algonquian language, similar enough to the N-dialects of the Massachusett and Wampanoag to be mutally intelligible. Other Y-dialects include the Shinnecock and Pequot languages. In the 17th century, Roger Williams, a co-founder of Rhode Island, learned the tribe's language, documenting it in his 1643 publication A Key Into the Language of America. Williams gave the tribe's name as "Nanhigganeuck," of which "Narragansett" seems to be an English corruption. A number of loan words have been absorbed into the English language from Narragansett and other closely related languages such as Wampanoag and Massachusett; such words include quahog, papoose, powwow, squash, and succotash. (...) more....

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