Their kinsmen, the Mohegans, varied this cosmogonical tradition, though retaining some of its main features. They taught that in the beginning there was nought but water and sky. At length from the sky a woman descended, our common mother. As she approached the boundless ocean, a small point of land rose above the watery surface, and supplied her with firm footing. She was pregnant by some mysterious power, and she brought forth on this island animal triplets--a bear, a deer and a wolf. From these all men and animals are descended. The island grew to a main land, and the mother of all, her mission accomplished, returned to her home in the sky.[231] This creation-myth, obtained from the Indians around New York harbor in the first generation after the advent of the whites, has every mark of a genuine native production, and coincides closely with that generally believed by the early Algonkins. It is followed by a migration myth, which ran to the effect that their early forefathers came out of the northwest, forsaking a tide-water country, and crossing over a great watery tract, called _ukhkok-pek_, "snake water, or water where snakes are abundant," (_âkhgook_, snake, and _pek_, standing water, probably from _n'pey_, water, _akek_, place or country). They crossed many streams, but none in which the water ebbed and flowed, until they reached the Hudson. "Then they said, one to another, 'This is like the Muhheakunnuck (tidal ocean) of our nativity.' Therefore they agreed to kindle a fire there and hang a kettle, whereof they and their children after them might dip out their daily refreshment." Hence came their name, the Tide-water People (see ante, p. 20). _National Traditions._ Many early writers attest the passionate fondness of the Delawares for their ancestral traditions and the memory of their ancient heroes. The missionary, David Brainerd, mentions this as one of the leading difficulties in the way of "evangelizing the Indians." "They are likewise much attached," he writes, "to the traditions and fabulous notions of their fathers, which they firmly believe, and thence look upon their ancestors to have been the best of men."[232] To the same effect, Loskiel informs us that the Delawares "love to relate what great warriors their ancestors had been, and how many heroic deeds they had performed. It is a pleasure to them to rehearse their genealogies. They are so skilled at it that they can repeat the chief and collateral lines with the utmost readiness. At the same time, they characterize their ancestors, by describing this one as a wise or skillful man, as a great chieftain, a renowned warrior, a rich man, and the like. This they teach to their children, and _embody it in pictures, so as to make it more readily remembered."_[233]