Chapter I: Part 1

THE COMPOSITION OF

INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES,

ILLUSTRATED FROM THE

ALGONKIN LANGUAGES.

BY J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL.

PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD & BRAINARD, Hartford, Conn.

[Transcriber's Note: Published 1870]

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[Transcriber's Note: The original book contains some diacriticals that are represented in this e-text as follows:

1. A macron is represented by an =, e.g. [=a]

2. A breve is represented by a ), e.g., [)a]

3. [n] represents a superscripted n (see Footnote 4).

4. [oo] represents an oo ligature (see Footnote 4.)]

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ON THE COMPOSITION OF

INDIAN GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES.

A proper name has been defined to be "a mere mark put upon an individual, and of which it is the characteristic property _to be destitute of meaning_."[1] If we accept this definition, it follows that there are no proper names in the aboriginal languages of America. Every Indian synthesis--names of persons and places not excepted--must "preserve the consciousness of its roots," and must not only have a meaning but be so framed as to convey that meaning with precision, to all who speak the language to which it belongs. Whenever, by phonetic corruption or by change of circumstance, it loses its self-interpreting or self-defining power, it must be discarded from the language. "It requires tradition, society, and literature to maintain forms which can no longer be analyzed at once."[2] In our own language, such forms may hold their places by prescriptive right or force of custom, and names absolutely unmeaning, or applied without regard to their original meaning, are accepted by common consent as the distinguishing marks of persons and places. We call a man William or Charles, Jones or Brown,--or a town, New Lebanon, Cincinnati, Baton Rouge, or Big Bethel--just as we put a number on a policeman's badge or on a post-office box, or a trademark on an article of merchandise; and the number and the mark are as truly and in nearly the same sense proper names as the others are.

[Footnote 1: Mill's Logic, B. I. ch. viii.]

[Footnote 2: Max Müller, Science of Language, (1st Series,) p. 292.]

Not that personal or proper names, in any language, were _originally_ mere arbitrary sounds, devoid of meaning. The first James or the first Brown could, doubtless, have given as good a reason for his name as the first Abraham. But changes of language and lapse of time made the names independent of the reasons, and took from them all their significance. Patrick is not now, _eo nomine_, a 'patrician;' Bridget is not necessarily 'strong' or 'bright;' and in the name of Mary, hallowed by its associations, only the etymologist can detect the primitive 'bitterness.' Boston is no longer 'St. Botolph's Town;' there is no 'Castle of the inhabitants of Hwiccia' (_Hwic-wara-ceaster_) to be seen at Worcester; and Hartford is neither 'the ford of harts,' (which the city seal has made it,) nor 'the red ford,' which its name once indicated.

In the same way, many Indian geographical names, after their adoption by Anglo-American colonists, became unmeaning sounds. Their original character was lost by their transfer to a foreign tongue. Nearly all have suffered some mutilation or change of form. In many instances, hardly a trace of true original can be detected in the modern name. Some have been separated from the localities to which they belonged, and assigned to others to which they are etymologically inappropriate. A mountain receives the name of a river; a bay, that of a cape or a peninsula; a tract of land, that of a rock or a waterfall. And so 'Massachusetts' and 'Connecticut' and 'Narragansett' have come to be _proper names_, as truly as 'Boston' and 'Hartford' are in their cis-Atlantic appropriation.

The Indian languages tolerated no such 'mere marks.' Every name _described_ the locality to which it was affixed. The description was sometimes _topographical_; sometimes _historical_, preserving the memory of a battle, a feast, the dwelling-place of a great sachem, or the like; sometimes it indicated one of the _natural products_ of the place, or the _animals_ which resorted to it; occasionally, its _position_ or _direction_ from a place previously known, or from the territory of the nation by which the name was given,--as for example, 'the land on the other side of the river,' 'behind the mountain,' 'the east land,' 'the half-way place,' &c. The same name might be, in fact it very often was, given to more places than one; but these must not be so near together that mistakes or doubts could be occasioned by the repetition. With this precaution, there was no reason why there might not be as many 'Great Rivers,' 'Bends,' 'Forks,' and 'Water-fall places' as there are Washingtons, Franklins, Unions, and Fairplays in the list of American post-offices.

With few exceptions, the structure of these names is simple. Nearly all may be referred to one of three classes:

I. Those formed by the union of two elements, which we will call _adjectival_ and _substantival_;[3] with or without a locative suffix or post-position meaning 'at,' 'in,' 'by,' 'near,' &c.

[Footnote 3: These terms, though not strictly appropriate to Indian synthesis, are sufficiently explicit for the purposes of this paper. They are borrowed from the author of "Words and Places" (the Rev. Isaac Taylor), who has employed them (2d ed., p. 460) as equivalents of Förstemann's "Bestimmungswort" and "Grundwort," (_Die deutschen Ortsnamen._ Nordhausen, 1863, pp. 26-107, 109-174). In Indian names, the "Bestimmungswort" sometimes corresponds to the English adjective--sometimes to a noun substantive--but is more generally an _adverb_.]

II. Those which have a single element, the _substantival_ or 'ground-word,' with its locative suffix.

III. Those formed from verbs, as participials or verbal nouns, denoting a _place where_ the action of the verb is performed. To this class belong, for example, such names as _Mushauwomuk_ (Boston), 'where there is going-by-boat,' _i.e._, a ferry, or canoe-crossing. Most of these names, however, may be shown by rigid analysis to belong to one of the two preceding classes, which comprise at least nine-tenths of all Algonkin local names which have been preserved.

The examples I shall give of these three classes, will be taken from Algonkin languages; chiefly from the Massachusetts or Natick (which was substantially the same as that spoken by the Narragansetts and Connecticut Indians), the Abnaki, the Lenni-Lenâpe or Delaware, the Chippewa or Ojibway, and the Knisteno or Cree.[4]

[Footnote 4: It has not been thought advisable to attempt the reduction of words or names taken from different languages to a uniform orthography. When no authorities are named, it may be understood that the Massachusetts words are taken from Eliot's translation of the Bible, or from his Indian Grammar; the Narragansett, from Roger Williams's Indian Key, and his published letters; the Abnaki, from the Dictionary of Râle (Rasles), edited by Dr. Pickering; the Delaware, from Zeisberger's Vocabulary and his Grammar; the Chippewa, from Schoolcraft (Sch.), Baraga's Dictionary and Grammar (B.), and the Spelling Books published by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions; and the Cree, from Howse's Grammar of that language.

The character _[oo]_ (_oo_ in 'food;' _w_ in 'Wabash,' 'Wisconsin'), used by Eliot, has been substituted in Abnaki words for the Greek [Greek: ou ligature] of Râle and the Jesuit missionaries, and for the [Greek: omega] of Campanius. A small [n] placed above the line, shows that the vowel which it follows is _nasal_,--and replaces the ñ employed for the same purpose by Râle, and the short line or dash placed under a vowel, in Pickering's alphabet.

In Eliot's notation, _oh_ usually represents the sound of _o_ in _order_ and in _form_,--that of broad _a_; but sometimes it stands for short _o_, as in _not_.]

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Of names of the _first_ class, in central and southern New England, some of the more common substantival components or 'ground-words' are those which denote _Land_ or _Country_, _River_, _Water_, _Lake_ or _Pond_, _Fishing-place_, _Rock_, _Mountain_, _Inclosure_, and _Island_.

1. The Massachusetts OHKE (Narr. _aûke_; Delaware, _hacki_; Chip. _ahke_; Abnaki, _'ki_;) signifies LAND, and in local names, PLACE or COUNTRY. The final vowel is sometimes lost in composition. With the locative suffix, it becomes _ohkit_ (Del. _hacking_; Chip. _ahki[n]_; Abn. _kik_;) _at_ or _in_ a place or country.

To the Narragansetts proper, the country east of Narragansett Bay and Providence River was _wa[n]pan-auke_, 'east land;' and its people were called by the Dutch explorers, _Wapenokis_, and by the English, _Wampanoags_. The tribes of the upper St. Lawrence taught the French, and tribes south of the Piscataqua taught the English, to give the name of East-landers--_Abenaquis_, or _Abinakis_--to the Indians of Maine. The country of the Delawares was 'east land,' _Wapanachki_, to Algonkin nations of the west.

The '_Chawwonock_,' or '_Chawonocke_,' of Capt. John Smith,--on what is now known as Chowan River, in Virginia and North Carolina,--was, to the Powhattans and other Virginian tribes, the 'south country,' or _sowan-ohke_, as Eliot wrote it, in Gen. xxiv. 62.

With the adjectival _sucki_, 'dark-colored,' 'blackish,' we have the aboriginal name of the South Meadow in Hartford,--_sucki-ohke_, (written _Sicaiook_, _Suckiaug_, &c.), 'black earth.'

_Wuskowhanan-auk-it_, 'at the pigeon country,' was the name (as given by Roger Williams) of a "place where these fowl breed abundantly,"--in the northern part of the Nipmuck country (now in Worcester county, Mass.).

'_Kiskatamenakook_,' the name of a brook (but originally, of some locality near the brook) in Catskill, N.Y.,[5] is _kiskato-minak-auke_, 'place of thin-shelled nuts' (or shag-bark hickory nuts).

[Footnote 5: Doc. Hist. of New York (4to), vol. iii. p. 656.]

2. RIVER. _Seip_ or _sepu_ (Del. _sipo_; Chip. _s[=e]p[=e]_; Abn. _sip[oo]_;) the Algonkin word for 'river' is derived from a root that means 'stretched out,' 'extended,' 'become long,' and corresponds nearly to the English 'stream.' This word rarely, if ever, enters into the composition of local names, and, so far as I know, it does not make a part of the name of any river in New England. _Mississippi_ is _missi-sipu_, 'great river;' _Kitchi-sipi_, 'chief river' or 'greatest river,' was the Montagnais name of the St. Lawrence;[6] and _Miste-shipu_ is their modern name for the Moise or 'Great River' which flows from the lakes of the Labrador peninsula into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.[7]

[Footnote 6: Jesuit Relations, 1633, 1636, 1640.]

[Footnote 7: Hind's Exploration of Labrador, i. 9, 32.]

Near the Atlantic seaboard, the most common substantival components of river names are (1) _-tuk_ and (2) _-hanne_, _-han_, or _-huan_. Neither of these is an independent word. They are inseparable nouns-generic, or generic affixes.

-TUK (Abn. _-teg[oo]é_; Del. _-ittuk_;) denotes a river whose waters are driven _in waves_, by tides or wind. It is found in names of tidal rivers and estuaries; less frequently, in names of _broad and deep_ streams, not affected by tides. With the adjectival _missi_, 'great,' it forms _missi-tuk_,--now written _Mystic_,--the name of 'the great river' of Boston bay, and of another wide-mouthed tidal river in the Pequot country, which now divides the towns of Stonington and Groton.

Near the eastern boundary of the Pequot country, was the river which the Narragansetts called _Paquat-tuk_, sometimes written _Paquetock_, now _Pawcatuck_, 'Pequot river,'--the present eastern boundary of Connecticut. Another adjectival prefix, _pohki_ or _pahke_, 'pure,' 'clear,' found in the name of several tidal streams, is hardly distinguishable from the former, in the modern forms of _Pacatock_, _Paucatuck_, &c.

_Quinni-tuk_ is the 'long tidal-river.' With the locative affix, _Quinni-tuk-ut_, 'on long river,'--now _Connecticut_,--was the name of the valley, or lands both sides of the river. In one early deed (1636), I find the name written _Quinetucquet_; in another, of the same year, _Quenticutt_. Roger Williams (1643) has _Qunnihticut_, and calls the Indians of this region _Quintik-óock_, i.e. 'the long river people.' The _c_ in the second syllable of the modern name has no business there, and it is difficult to find a reason for its intrusion.

'_Lenapewihittuck_' was the Delaware name of 'the river of the Lenape,' and '_Mohicannittuck_,' of 'the river of the Mohicans' (Hudson River).[8]

[Footnote 8: Heckewelder's Historical account, &c., p. 33. He was mistaken in translating "the word _hittuck_," by "a rapid stream."]

Of _Pawtucket_ and _Pawtuxet_, the composition is less obvious; but we have reliable Indian testimony that these names mean, respectively, 'at the falls' and 'at the little falls.' Pequot and Narragansett interpreters, in 1679, declared that Blackstone's River, was "called in Indian _Pautuck_ (which signifies, a Fall), because there the fresh water falls into the salt water."[9] So, the upper falls of the Quinebaug river (at Danielsonville, Conn.) were called "_Powntuck_, which is a general name for all Falls," as Indians of that region testified.[10] There was another Pautucket, 'at the falls' of the Merrimac (now Lowell); and another on Westfield River, Mass. _Pawtuxet_, i.e. _pau't-tuk-es-it_, is the regularly formed diminutive of _paut-tuk-it_. The village of Pawtuxet, four miles south of Providence, R.I., is "at the little falls" of the river to which their name has been transferred. The first settlers of Plymouth were informed by Samoset, that the place which they had chosen for their plantation was called '_Patuxet_,'--probably because of some 'little falls' on Town Brook.[11] There was another 'Pautuxet,' or 'Powtuxet,' on the Quinebaug, at the lower falls; and a river 'Patuxet' (Patuxent), in Maryland. The same name is ingeniously disguised by Campanius, as '_Poaetquessing_,' which he mentions as one of the principal towns of the Indians on the Delaware, just below the lower falls of that river at Trenton; and 'Poutaxat' was understood by the Swedes to be the Indian name both of the river and bay.[12] The adjectival _pawt-_ or _pauat-_ seems to be derived from a root meaning 'to make a loud noise.' It is found in many, perhaps in all Algonkin languages. '_Pawating_,' as Schoolcraft wrote it, was the Chippewa name of the Sault Ste. Marie, or Falls of St. Mary's River,--pronounced _poú-at-ing´_, or _pau-at-u[n]_, the last syllable representing the locative affix,--"at the Falls." The same name is found in Virginia, under a disguise which has hitherto prevented its recognition. Capt. John Smith informs us that the "place of which their great Emperor taketh his name" of _Powhatan_, or _Pawatan_, was near "the Falls" of James River,[13] where is now the city of Richmond. 'Powatan' is _pauat-hanne_, or 'falls on a rapid stream.'

[Footnote 9: Col. Records of Connecticut, 1677-89, p. 275.]

[Footnote 10: Chandler's Survey of the Mohegan country, 1705.]

[Footnote 11: See Mourt's Relation, Dexter's edition, pp. 84, 91, 99. Misled by a form of this name, _Patackosi_, given in the Appendix to Savage's Winthrop (ii. 478) and elsewhere, I suggested to Dr. Dexter another derivation. See his note 297, to Mourt, p. 84.]

[Footnote 12: Descrip. of New Sweden, b. ii. ch. 1, 2; Proud's Hist. of Pennsylvania, ii. 252.]

[Footnote 13: "True Relation of Virginia," &c. (Deane's edition, Boston, 1866), p. 7. On Smith's map, 1606, the 'King's house,' at '_Powhatan_,' is marked just below "The Fales" on '_Powhatan flu:_' or James River.]

_Acáwmé_ or _Ogkomé_ (Chip. _agami_; Abn. _aga[n]mi_; Del. _achgameu_;) means 'on the other side,' 'over against,' 'beyond.' As an adjectival, it is found in _Acawm-auké_, the modern 'Accomac,' a peninsula east of Chesapeake Bay, which was 'other-side land' to the Powhatans of Virginia. The site of Plymouth, Mass., was called 'Accomack' by Capt. John Smith,--a name given not by the Indians who occupied it but by those, probably, who lived farther north, 'on the other side' of Plymouth Bay. The countries of Europe were called 'other-side lands,'--Narr. _acawmen-óaki_; Abn. _aga[n]men-[oo]ki_. With _-tuk_, it forms _acawmen-tuk_ (Abn. _aga[n]men-teg[oo]_), 'other-side river,' or, its diminutive, _acawmen-tuk-es_ (Abn. _aga[n]men-teg[oo]éss[oo]_), 'the small other-side river,'--a name first given (as _Agamenticus_ or _Accomenticus_) to York, Me., from the 'small tidal-river beyond' the Piscataqua, on which that town was planted.

_Peske-tuk_ (Abn. _peské-teg[oo]é_) denotes a '_divided_ river,' or a river which another _cleaves_. It is not generally (if ever) applied to one of the 'forks' which unite to form the main stream, but to some considerable tributary received by the main stream, or to the division of the stream by some obstacle, near its mouth, which makes of it a 'double river.' The primary meaning of the (adjectival) root is 'to divide in two,' and the secondary, 'to split,' 'to divide _forcibly_, or _abruptly_.' These shades of meaning are not likely to be detected under the disguises in which river-names come down to our time. Râle translates _ne-peské_, "je vas dans le chemin qui en coupe un autre:" _peskahak[oo]n_, "branche."

_Piscataqua_, Pascataqua, &c., represent the Abn. _peské-teg[oo]é_, 'divided tidal-river.' The word for 'place' (_ohke_, Abn. _'ki_,) being added, gives the form _Piscataquak_ or _-quog_. There is another _Piscataway_, in New Jersey,--not far below the junction of the north and south branches of the Raritan,--and a Piscataway river in Maryland, which empties into the Potomac; a _Piscataquog_ river, tributary to the Merrimac, in New Hampshire; a _Piscataquis_ (diminutive) in Maine, which empties into the Penobscot. _Pasquotank_, the name of an arm of Albemarle Sound and of a small river which flows into it, in North Carolina, has probably the same origin.

The adjectival _peské_, or _piské_, is found in many other compound names besides those which are formed with _-tuk_ or _-hanne_: as in _Pascoag_, for _peské-auké_, in Burrilville, R.I., 'the dividing place' of two branches of Blackstone's River; and _Pesquamscot_, in South Kingston, R.I., which (if the name is rightly given) is "at the divided (or cleft) rock,"--_peské-ompsk-ut_,--perhaps some ancient land-mark, on or near the margin of Worden's Pond.

_Nôeu-tuk_ (_Nóahtuk_, Eliot), 'in the middle of the river,' may be, as Mr. Judd[14] and others have supposed, the name which has been variously corrupted to Norwottock, Nonotuck, Noatucke, Nawottok, &c. If so, it probably belonged, originally to one of the necks or peninsulas of meadow, near Northampton,--such as that at Hockanum, which, by a change in the course of the river at that point, has now become an island.

[Footnote 14: History of Hadley, pp. 121, 122.]

_Tetiquet_ or _Titicut_, which passes for the Indian name of Taunton, and of a fishing place on Taunton River in the north-west part of Middleborough, Mass., shows how effectually such names may be disguised by phonetic corruption and mutilation. _Kehte-tuk-ut_ (or as Eliot wrote it in Genesis xv. 18, _Kehteihtukqut_) means 'on the great river.' In the Plymouth Colony Records we find the forms '_Cauteeticutt_' and '_Coteticutt_,' and elsewhere, _Kehtehticut_,--the latter, in 1698, as the name of a place on the great river, "between Taunton and Bridgewater." Hence, 'Teghtacutt,' 'Teightaquid,' 'Tetiquet,' &c.[15]

[Footnote 15: See Hist. Magazine, vol. iii. p. 48.]

(2). The other substantival component of river-names, -HANNE or -HAN (Abn. _-ts[oo]a[n]n_ or _-ta[n]n_; Mass. _-tchuan_;) denotes 'a rapid stream' or 'current;' primarily, 'flowing water.' In the Massachusetts and Abnaki, it occurs in such compounds as _anu-tchuan_ (Abn. _ari'ts[oo]a[n]n_), 'it _over_-flows:' _kussi-tchuan_ (Abn. _kesi'ts[oo]a[n]n_), 'it _swift_ flows,' &c.

In Pennsylvania and Virginia, where the streams which rise in the highlands flow down rapidly descending slopes, _-hanné_ is more common than _-tuk_ or _sepu_ in river names. _Keht-hanné_ (_kittan_, Zeisb.; _kithanne_, Hkw.) was a name given to the Delaware River as 'the principal or greatest stream' of that region: and by the western Delawares, to the Ohio.[16] With the locative termination, _Kittanning_ (Penn.) is a place 'on the greatest stream.' The Schuylkill was _Ganshow-hanné_, 'noisy stream;' the Lackawanna, _Lechau-hanné_, 'forked stream' or 'stream that forks:'[17] with affix, _Lechauhannak_ or _Lechauwahannak_, 'at the river-fork,'--for which Hendrick Aupamut, a Muhhekan, wrote (with dialectic exchange of _n_ for Delaware _l_) '_Naukhuwwhnauk_,' 'The Forks' of the Miami.[18] The same name is found in New England, disguised as Newichawanock, Nuchawanack, &c., as near Berwick, Me., 'at the fork' or confluence of Cocheco and Salmon Fall rivers,--the '_Neghechewanck_' of Wood's Map (1634). _Powhatan_, for _Pauat-hanne_, 'at the Falls on a rapid stream,' has been previously noticed.

[Footnote 16: Heckewelder, on Indian names, in Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. vol. iv.]

[Footnote 17: Ibid.]

[Footnote 18: Narrative, &c., in Mem. Hist. Society of Pennsylvania, vol. ii. p. 97.]

_Alleghany_, or as some prefer to write it, Allegheny,--the Algonkin name of the Ohio River, but now restricted to one of its branches,--is probably (Delaware) _welhik-hanné_ or _[oo]lik-hanné_, 'the best (or, the fairest) river.' _Welhik_ (as Zeisberger wrote it)[19] is the inanimate form of the adjectival, meaning 'best,' 'most beautiful.' In his Vocabulary, Zeisberger gave this synthesis, with slight change of orthography, as "_Wulach'neü_" [or _[oo]lakhanne[oo]_, as Eliot would have written it,] with the free translation, "_a fine River_, without Falls." The name was indeed more likely to belong to rivers 'without falls' or other obstruction to the passage of canoes, but its literal meaning is, as its composition shows, "best rapid-stream," or "finest rapid-stream;" "La Belle Riviere" of the French, and the _Oue-yo´_ or _O hee´ yo Gä-hun´-dä_, "good river" or "the beautiful river," of the Senecas.[20] For this translation of the name we have very respectable authority,--that of Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian of Pennsylvania, who lived seventeen years with the Muhhekan Indians and was twice married among them, and whose knowledge of the Indian languages enabled him to render important services to the colony, as a negotiator with the Delawares and Shawanese of the Ohio, in the French war. In his "Journal from Philadelphia to the Ohio" in 1758,[21] after mention of the 'Alleghenny' river, he says: "The _Ohio_, as it is called by the Sennecas. _Alleghenny_ is the name of the same river in the Delaware language. _Both words signify the fine_ or _fair river_." La Metairie, the notary of La Salle's expedition, "calls the Ohio, the _Olighinsipou_, or _Aleghin_; evidently an Algonkin name,"--as Dr. Shea remarks.[22] Heckewelder says that the Delawares "still call the Allegany (Ohio) river, _Alligéwi Sipu_,"--"the river of the _Alligewi_" as he chooses to translate it. In one form, we have _wulik-hannésipu_, 'best rapid-stream long-river;' in the other, _wuliké-sipu_, 'best long-river.' Heckewelder's derivation of the name, on the authority of a Delaware legend, from the mythic 'Alligewi' or 'Talligewi,'--"a race of Indians said to have once inhabited that country," who, after great battles fought in pre-historic times, were driven from it by the all-conquering Delawares,[23]--is of no value, unless supported by other testimony. The identification of _Alleghany_ with the Seneca "_De o´ na gä no_, cold water" [or, cold spring,[24]] proposed by a writer in the _Historical Magazine_ (vol. iv. p. 184), though not apparent at first sight, might deserve consideration if there were any reason for believing the name of the river to be of Iroquois origin,--if it were probable that an Iroquois name would have been adopted by Algonkin nations,--or, if the word for 'water' or 'spring' could be made, in any American language, the substantival component of a _river_ name.

[Footnote 19: Grammar of the Lenni-Lenape, transl. by Duponceau, p. 43. "_Wulit_, good." "_Welsit_ (masc. and fem.), the best." "Inanimate, _Welhik_, best."]

[Footnote 20: Morgan's League of the Iroquois, p. 436.]

[Footnote 21: Published in London, 1759, and re-printed in Appendix to Proud's Hist. of Penn., vol. ii. pp. 65-132.]

[Footnote 22: Shea's Early Voyages on the Mississippi, p. 75.

La Metairie's '_Olighinsipou_' suggests another possible derivation which may be worth mention. The Indian name of the Alleghanies has been said,--I do not now remember on whose authority,--to mean 'Endless Mountains.' 'Endless' cannot be more exactly expressed in any Algonkin language than by 'very long' or 'longest,'--in the Delaware, _Eluwi-guneu_. "The very long or longest river" would be _Eluwi-guneu sipu_, or, if the words were compounded in one, _Eluwi-gunesipu_.]

[Footnote 23: Paper on Indian names, _ut supra_, p. 367; Historical Account, &c., pp. 29-32.]

[Footnote 24: Morgan's League of the Iroquois, pp. 466, 468.]

From the river, the name appears to have been transferred by the English to a range of the "Endless Mountains."

3. NIPPE, NIPI (= _n'pi_; Narr. _nip_; Muhh. _nup_; Abn. and Chip. _nebi_; Del. _m'bi_;) and its diminutives, _nippisse_ and _nips_, were employed in compound names to denote WATER, generally, without characterizing it as 'swift flowing,' 'wave moved,' 'tidal,' or 'standing:' as, for example, in the name of a part of a river, where the stream widening with diminished current becomes lake-like, or of a stretch of tide-water inland, forming a bay or cove at a river's mouth. By the northern Algonkins, it appears to have been used for 'lake,' as in the name of _Missi-nippi_ or _Missinabe_ lake ('great water'), and in that of Lake _Nippissing_, which has the locative affix, _nippis-ing_, 'at the small lake' north-east of the greater Lake Huron, which gave a name to the nation of 'Nipissings,' or as the French called them, '_Nipissiriniens_,'--according to Charlevoix, the true Algonkins.

_Quinnipiac_, regarded as the Indian name of New Haven,--also written Quinnypiock, Quinopiocke, Quillipiack, &c., and by President Stiles[25] (on the authority of an Indian of East Haven) _Quinnepyooghq_,--is, probably, 'long water place,' _quinni-nippe-ohke_, or _quin-nipi-ohke_. _Kennebec_ would seem to be another form of the same name, from the Abnaki, _k[oo]né-be-ki_, were it not that Râle wrote,[26] as the name of the river, '_Aghenibékki_'--suggesting a different adjectival. But Biard, in the _Relation de la Nouvelle-France_ of 1611, has '_Kinibequi_,' Champlain, _Quinebequy_, and Vimont, in 1640, '_Quinibequi_,' so that we are justified in regarding the name as the probable equivalent of _Quinni-pi-ohke_.

[Footnote 25: Ms. Itinerary. He was careful to preserve the Indian pronunciation of local names, and the form in which he gives this name convinces me that it is not, as I formerly supposed, the _quinnuppohke_ (or _quinuppeohke_) of Eliot,--meaning 'the surrounding country' or the 'land all about' the site of New Haven.]

[Footnote 26: Dictionary, s.v. 'Noms.']

_Win-nippe-sauki_ (Winnipiseogee) will be noticed hereafter.

4. -PAUG, -POG, -BOG, (Abn. _-béga_ or _-bégat_; Del. _-pécat_;) an inseparable generic, denoting 'WATER AT REST,' 'standing water,' is the substantival component of names of small lakes and ponds, throughout New England.[27] Some of the most common of these names are,--

[Footnote 27: _Paug_ is regularly formed from _pe_ (Abn. _bi_), the base of _nippe_, and may be translated more exactly by 'where water is' or 'place of water.']

_Massa-paug_, 'great pond,'--which appears in a great variety of modern forms, as Mashapaug, Mashpaug, Massapogue, Massapog, &c. A pond in Cranston, near Providence, R.I.; another in Warwick, in the same State; 'Alexander's Lake,' in Killingly; 'Gardiner's Lake,' in Salem, Bozrah and Montville; 'Tyler Pond,' in Goshen; ponds in Sharon, Groton, and Lunenburg, Mass., were each of them the 'Massapaug' or 'great pond' of its vicinity.

_Quinni-paug_, 'long pond.' One in Killingly, gave a name to _Quinebaug_ River and the 'Quinebaug country.' Endicott, in 1651, wrote this name 'Qunnubbágge' (3 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv. 191). "Quinepoxet," the name of a pond and small river in Princeton, Mass., appears to be a corruption of the diminutive with the locative affix; _Quinni-paug-es-it_, 'at the little long pond.'

_Wongun-paug_, 'crooked (or bent) pond.' There is one of the name in Coventry, Conn. Written, 'Wangunbog,' 'Wungumbaug,' &c.

_Petuhkqui-paug_, 'round pond,' now called 'Dumpling Pond,' in Greenwich, Conn., gave a name to a plain and brook in that town, and, occasionally, to the plantation settled there, sometimes written 'Petuckquapock.'

_Nunni-paug_, 'fresh pond.' One in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, gave a name (Nunnepoag) to an Indian village near it. Eliot wrote _nunnipog_, for 'fresh water,' in James iii. 12.

_Sonki-paug_ or _so[n]ki-paug_, 'cool pond.' (_Sonkipog_, 'cold water,' Eliot.) Egunk-sonkipaug, or 'the cool pond (spring) of Egunk' hill in Sterling, Conn., is named in Chandler's Survey of the Mohegan country, as one of the east bounds.

_Pahke-paug_, 'clear pond' or 'pure water pond.' This name occurs in various forms, as 'Pahcupog,' a pond near Westerly, R.I.;[28] 'Pauquepaug,' transferred from a pond to a brook in Kent and New Milford; 'Paquabaug,' near Shepaug River, in Roxbury, &c. 'Pequabuck' river, in Bristol and Farmington, appears to derive its name from some 'clear pond,'--perhaps the one between Bristol and Plymouth.

[Footnote 28: A bound of Human Garret's land, one mile north-easterly from Ninigret's old Fort. See _Conn. Col. Records_, ii. 314.]

Another noun-generic that denotes 'lake' or 'fresh water at rest,' is found in many Abnaki, northern Algonkin and Chippewa names, but not, perhaps, in Massachusetts or Connecticut. This is the Algonkin _-g[)a]mi_, _-g[)o]mi_, or _-gummee_. _Kitchi-gami_ or '_Kechegummee_,' the Chippewa name of Lake Superior, is 'the greatest, or chief lake.' _Caucomgomoc_, in Maine, is the Abn. _kaäkou-gami-k_, 'at Big-Gull lake.' _Temi-gami_, 'deep lake,' discharges its waters into Ottawa River, in Canada; _Kinou-gami_, now Kenocami, 'long lake,' into the Saguenay, at Chicoutimi.

There is a _Mitchi-gami_ or (as sometimes written) _machi-gummi_, 'large lake,' in northern Wisconsin, and the river which flows from it has received the same name, with the locative suffix, '_Machig[=a]mig_' (for _mitchi-gaming_). A branch of this river is now called 'Fence River' from a _mitchihikan_ or _mitchikan_, a 'wooden fence' constructed near its banks, by the Indians, for catching deer.[29] Father Allouez describes, in the 'Relation' for 1670 (p. 96), a sort of 'fence' or weir which the Indians had built across Fox River, for taking sturgeon &c., and which they called '_Mitihikan_;' and shortly after, he mentions the destruction, by the Iroquois, of a village of Outagamis (Fox Indians) near his mission station, called _Machihigan-ing_, ['at the _mitchihikan_, or weir?'] on the 'Lake of the Illinois,' now _Michigan_. Father Dablon, in the next year's Relation, calls this lake '_Mitchiganons_.' Perhaps there was some confusion between the names of the 'weir' and the 'great lake,' and 'Michigan' appears to have been adopted as a kind of compromise between the two. If so, this modern form of the name is corrupt in more senses than one.[30]

[Footnote 29: Foster and Whitney's Report on the Geology of Lake Superior, &c., Pt. II p. 400.]

[Footnote 30: Râle gives Abn. _mitsegan_, 'fianté.' Thoreau, fishing in a river in Maine, caught several sucker-like fishes, which his Abnaki guide threw away, saying they were '_Michegan fish_, i.e., soft and stinking fish, good for nothing.'--_Maine Woods_, p. 210.]

5. -AMAUG, denoting 'A FISHING PLACE' (Abn. _a[n]ma[n]gan_, 'on pêche là,') is derived from the root _âm_ or _âma_, signifying 'to take by the mouth;' whence, _âm-aü_, 'he fishes with hook and line,' and Del. _âman_, a fish-hook. _Wonkemaug_ for _wongun-amaug_, 'crooked fishing-place,' between Warren and New Preston, in Litchfield county, is now 'Raumaug Lake.' _Ouschank-amaug_, in East Windsor, was perhaps the 'eel fishing-place.' The lake in Worcester, _Quansigamaug_, _Quansigamug_, &c., and now _Quinsigamond_, was 'the pickerel fishing-place,' _qunnosuog-amaug_.

6. ROCK. In composition, -PISK or -PSK (Abn. _pesk[oo]_; Cree, _-pisk_; Chip. _-bik_;) denotes _hard_ or _flint-like_ rock;[31] -OMPSK or O[N]BSK, and, by phonetic corruption, -MSK, (from _ompaé_, 'upright,' and _-pisk_,) a 'standing rock.' As a substantival component of local names, _-ompsk_ and, with the locative affix, _-ompskut_, are found in such names as--

[Footnote 31: Primarily, that which 'breaks,' 'cleaves,' 'splits:' distinguishing the _harder_ rocks--such as were used for making spear and arrow heads, axes, chisels, corn-mortars, &c., and for striking fire,--from the _softer_, such as steatite (soap-stone) from which pots and other vessels, pipe-bowls, &c., were fashioned.]

_Petukqui-ompskut_, corrupted to _Pettiquamscut_, 'at the round rock.' Such a rock, on the east side of Narrow River, north-east from Tower Hill Church in South Kingston, R.I., was one of the bound marks of, and gave a name to, the "Pettiquamscut purchase" in the Narragansett country.

_Wanashqui-ompskut_ (_wanashquompsqut_, Ezekiel xxvi. 14), 'at the top of the rock,' or at 'the point of rock.' _Wonnesquam_, _Annis Squam_, and _Squam_, near Cape Ann, are perhaps corrupt forms of the name of some 'rock summit' or 'point of rock' thereabouts. _Winnesquamsaukit_ (for _wanashqui-ompsk-ohk-it_?) near Exeter Falls, N.H., has been transformed to _Swampscoate_ and _Squamscot_. The name of Swamscot or Swampscot, formerly part of Lynn, Mass., has a different meaning. It is from _m'squi-ompsk_, 'Red Rock' (the modern name), near the north end of Long Beach, which was perhaps "The clifte" mentioned as one of the bounds of Mr. Humfrey's Swampscot farm, laid out in 1638.[32] _M'squompskut_ means 'at the red rock.' The sound of the initial _m_ was easily lost to English ears.[33]

[Footnote 32: Mass. Records, i. 147, 226.]

[Footnote 33: _Squantam_, the supposed name of an Algonkin deity, is only a corrupt form of the verb _m'squantam_, = _musqui-antam_, 'he is angry,' literally, 'he is _red_ (bloody-) minded.']

_Penobscot_, a corruption of the Abnaki _pa[n]na[oo]a[n]bskek_, was originally the name of a locality on the river so called by the English. Mr. Moses Greenleaf, in a letter to Dr. Morse in 1823, wrote '_Pe noom´ ske ook_' as the Indian name of Old Town Falls, "whence the English name of the River, which would have been better, _Penobscook_." He gave, as the meaning of this name, "Rocky Falls." The St. Francis Indians told Thoreau, that it means "Rocky River."[34] 'At the fall of the rock' or 'at the descending rock' is a more nearly exact translation. The first syllable, _pen-_ (Abn. _pa[n]na_) represents a root meaning 'to fall from a height,'--as in _pa[n]n-tek[oo]_, 'fall of a river' or 'rapids;' _pena[n]-ki_, 'fall of land,' the descent or downward slope of a mountain, &c.

[Footnote 34: Maine Woods, pp. 145, 324.]

_Keht-ompskqut_, or 'Ketumpscut' as it was formerly written,[35]--'at the greatest rock,'--is corrupted to _Catumb_, the name of a reef off the west end of Fisher's Island.

[Footnote 35: Pres. Stiles's Itinerary, 1761.]

_Tomheganomset_[36]--corrupted finally to 'Higganum,' the name of a brook and parish in the north-east part of Haddam,--appears to have been, originally, the designation of a locality from which the Indians procured stone suitable for making axes,--_tomhegun-ompsk-ut_, 'at the tomahawk rock.' In 'Higganompos,' as the name was sometimes written, without the locative affix, we have less difficulty in recognizing the substantival _-ompsk_.

[Footnote 36: Conn. Col. Records, i. 434.]

QUSSUK, another word for 'rock' or 'stone,' used by Eliot and Roger Williams, is not often--perhaps never found in local names. _Hassun_ or _Assun_ (Chip. _assin´_; Del. _achsin_;) appears in New England names only as an adjectival (_assuné_, _assini_, 'stony'), but farther north, it occasionally occurs as the substantival component of such names as _Mistassinni_, 'the Great Stone,' which gives its name to a lake in British America, to a tribe of Indians, and to a river that flows into St. John's Lake.[37]

[Footnote 37: Hind's Exploration of Labrador, vol. ii. pp. 147, 148.]

7. WADCHU (in composition, -ADCHU) means, always, 'mountain' or 'hill.' In _Wachuset_, we have it, with the locative affix _-set_, 'near' or 'in the vicinity of the mountain,'--a name which has been transferred to the mountain itself. With the adjectival _massa_, 'great,' is formed _mass-adchu-set_, 'near the great mountain,' or 'great hill country,'--now, _Massachusetts_.

'_Kunckquachu_' and '_Quunkwattchu_,' mentioned in the deeds of Hadley purchase, in 1658,[38] are forms of _qunu[n]kqu-adchu_, 'high mountain,'--afterwards belittled as 'Mount Toby.'

[Footnote 38: History of Hadley, 21, 22, 114.]

'_Kearsarge_,' the modern name of two well-known mountains in New Hampshire, disguises _k[oo]wass-adchu_, 'pine mountain.' On Holland's Map, published in 1784, the southern Kearsarge (in Merrimack county) is marked "Kyarsarga Mountain; by the Indians, _Cowissewaschook_."[39] In this form,--which the termination _ok_ (for _ohke_, _auke_, 'land,') shows to belong to the _region_, not exclusively to the mountain itself,--the analysis becomes more easy. The meaning of the adjectival is perhaps not quite certain. _K[oo]wa_ (Abn. _k[oo]é_) 'a pine tree,' with its diminutive, _k[oo]wasse_, is a derivative,--from a root which means 'sharp,' 'pointed.' It is _possible_, that in this synthesis, the root preserves its primary signification, and that 'Kearsarge' is the 'pointed' or 'peaked mountain.'

[Footnote 39: W.F. Goodwin, in Historical Magazine, ix. 28.]

_Mauch Chunk_ (Penn.) is from Del. _machk_, 'bear' and _wachtschunk_, 'at, or on, the mountain,'--according to Heckewelder, who writes '_Machkschúnk_,' or the Delaware name of 'the bear's mountain.'

In the Abnaki and some other Algonkin dialects, the substantival component of mountain names is -ÁDENÉ,--an inseparable noun-generic. _Katahdin_ (pronounced _Ktaadn_ by the Indians of Maine), Abn. _Ket-ádené_, 'the greatest (or chief) mountain,' is the equivalent of '_Kittatinny_,' the name of a ridge of the Alleghanies, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

8. -KOMUK or KOMAKO (Del. _-kamik_, _-kamiké_; Abn. _-kamighe_; Cree, _-gómmik_; Powhatan, _-comaco_;) cannot be exactly translated by any one English word. It denotes 'place,' in the sense of _enclosed_, _limited_ or _appropriated_ space. As a component of local names, it means, generally, 'an enclosure,' natural or artificial; such as a house or other building, a village, a planted field, a thicket or place surrounded by trees, &c. The place of residence of the Sachem, which (says Roger Williams) was "far different from other houses [wigwams], both in capacity, and in the fineness and quality of their mats," was called _sachimâ-komuk_, or, as Edward Winslow wrote it, '_sachimo comaco_,'--the Sachem-house. _Werowocomoco_, _Weramocomoco_, &c. in Virginia, was the 'Werowance's house,' and the name appears on Smith's map, at a place "upon the river Pamauncke [now York River], where the great King [Powhatan] was resident."

_Kuppi-komuk_, 'closed place,' 'secure enclosure,' was the name of a Pequot fastness in a swamp, in Groton, Conn. Roger Williams wrote this name "Cuppacommock," and understood its meaning to be "a refuge, or hiding place." Eliot has _kuppóhkomuk_ for a planted 'grove,' in Deut. xvi. 21, and for a landing-place or safe harbor, Acts xxvii. 40.

_Nashaue-komuk_, 'half-way house,' was at what is now Chilmark, on Martha's Vineyard, where there was a village of praying Indians[40] in 1698, and earlier.

[Footnote 40: About half-way from Tisbury to Gay Head.]

The Abnaki _keta-kamig[oo]_ means, according to Râle, 'the main land,'--literally, 'greatest place;' _teteba-kamighé_, 'level place,' a plain; _pépam-kamighek_, 'the _all_ land,' 'l'univers.'

_Néssa[oo]a-kamíghé_, meaning 'double place' or '_second_ place,' was the name of the Abnaki village of St. Francis de Sales, on the St. Lawrence,[41]--to which the mission was removed about 1700, from its _first_ station established near the Falls of the Chaudière in 1683.[42]

[Footnote 41: Râle, s.v. VILLAGE.]

[Footnote 42: Shea's Hist. of Catholic Missions, 142, 145.]

9. Of two words meaning _Island_, MUNNOHAN or, rejecting the formative, MUNNOH (Abn. _menahan_; Del. _menatey_; Chip. _minís_, a diminutive,) is the more common, but is rarely, if ever, found in composition. The 'Grand _Menan_,' opposite Passammaquoddy Bay, retains the Abnaki name. Long Island was _Menatey_ or _Manati_, '_the_ Island,'--to the Delawares, Minsi and other neighboring tribes. Any smaller island was _menatan_ (Mass. _munnohhan_), the _indefinite_ form, or _menates_ (Mass. _munnises_, _manisses_), the _diminutive_. Campanius mentions one '_Manathaan_,' Coopers' Island (now Cherry Island) near Fort Christina, in the Delaware,[43] and "_Manataanung_ or _Manaates_, a place settled by the Dutch, who built there a clever little town, which went on increasing every day,"--now called New York. (The termination in _-ung_ is the locative affix.) New York Island was sometimes spoken of as '_the_ island'--'Manaté,' 'Manhatte;' sometimes as '_an_ island'--Manathan, Menatan, '_Manhatan_;' more accurately, as 'the _small_ island'--Manhaates, Manattes, and 'the Manados' of the Dutch. The Island Indians collectively, were called _Manhattans_; those of the small island, '_Manhatesen_.' "They deeply mistake," as Gov. Stuyvesant's agents declared, in 1659,[44] "who interpret the general name of _Manhattans_, unto the particular town built upon a _little Island_; because it signified the whole country and province."

[Footnote 43: Description of New Sweden, b. ii. c. 8. (Duponceau's translation.)]

[Footnote 44: N.Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, iii. 375.]

_Manisses_ or Monasses, as Block Island was called, is another form of the diminutive,--from _munnoh_; and _Manhasset_, otherwise written, Munhansick, a name of Shelter Island, is the same diminutive with the locative affix, _munna-es-et_. So is 'Manusses' or 'Mennewies,' an island near Rye, N.Y.,--now written (with the southern form of the locative,) _Manussing_.

_Montauk_ Point, formerly Montauket, Montacut, and by Roger Williams, _Munnawtawkit_, is probably from _manati_, _auke_, and _-it_ locative; 'in the Island country,' or 'country of the Islanders.'

The other name of 'Island,' in Algonkin languages, is AHQUEDNE or OCQUIDNE; with the locative; _ahquednet_, as in Acts xxvii. 16. (Compare, Cree, _ákootin_, "it suspends, is _sit_-uate, e.g. an island in the water," from _âkoo_, a verbal root "expressive of a state of rest." Howse's Grammar, p. 152. Micmac, _agwitk_, "it is in the water;" whence, _Ep-agwit_, "it lies [sits?] in the water,"[45] the Indian name of Prince Edward's Island.) This appears to have been restricted in its application, to islands lying near the main land or spoken of _with reference_ to the main land. Roger Williams learned from the Narragansetts to call Rhode Island, _Aquiday_, Aquednet, &c., '_the_ Island' or 'at the Island,' and a "little island in the mouth of the Bay," was _Aquedenesick_,[46] or Aquidneset, i.e. 'at the small island.'

[Footnote 45: Dawson's Acadian Geology, App. p. 673.]

[Footnote 46: 4th Mass. Hist. Collections, vi. 267.]

_Chippaquiddick_, the modern name of an island divided by a narrow strait from Martha's Vineyard, is from _cheppi-aquidne_, 'separated island.'

Abnaki names ending in _-ka[n]tti_, or _-kontee_ (Mass. _-kontu_; Etchemin or Maliseet, _-kodiah_, _-quoddy_; Micmac, _-ka[n]di_, or _-aikadee_;) may be placed with those of the first class, though this termination, representing a substantival component, is really only the locative affix of nouns in the _indefinite plural_. Exact location was denoted by affixing, to inanimate nouns-singular, _-et_, _-it_ or _-ut_; proximity, or something _less_ than exact location, by _-set_, (interposing _s_, the characteristic of diminutives and derogatives) between the noun and affix. _Plural_ nouns, representing a _definite number_ of individuals, or a number which might be regarded _as_ definite, received _-ettu_, _-ittu_, or _-uttu_, in the locative: but if the number was _indefinite_, or many individuals were spoken of collectively, the affix was _-kontu_, denoting 'where many are,' or 'place of abundance.' For example, _wadchu_, mountain; _wadchu-ut_, to, on, or at the mountain; _wadchu-set_, near the mountain; _wadchuuttu_ (or _-ehtu_), in or among _certain mountains_, known or indicated (as in Eliot's version of Numbers xxxiii. 47, 48); _wadchué-kontu_, among mountains, where there are a great many mountains, for 'in the hill country,' Joshua xiii. 6. So, _nippe-kontu_, 'in the waters,' i.e. in _many_ waters, or 'where there is much water,' Deut. iv. 18; v. 8. In Deuteronomy xi. 11, the conversion to a verb of a noun which had previously received this affix, shows that the idea of _abundance_ or of _multitude_ is associated with it: "_ohke wadchuuhkontu[oo]_," i.e. _wadechué-kontu-[oo]_, "the land is a land of hills," that is, where are _many_ hills, or where hills are _plenty_.

This form of verb was rarely used by Eliot and is not alluded to in his Grammar. It appears to have been less common in the Massachusetts than in most of the other Algonkin languages. In the Chippewa, an 'abundance verb,' as Baraga[47] calls it, may be formed from any noun, by adding _-ka_ or _-[)i]ka_ for the indicative present: in the Cree, by adding _-skow_ or _-ooskow_. In the Abnaki, _-ka_ or _-k[oo]_, or _-ik[oo]_, forms similar verbs, and verbals. The final _'tti_ of _ka[n]tti_, represents the impersonal _a'tté_, _eto_, 'there belongs to it,' 'there is there,' _il y a_. (Abn. _meskik[oo]i'ka[n]tti_, 'where there is abundance of grass,' is the equivalent of the Micmac "_m'skeegoo-aicadee_, a meadow."[48])

[Footnote 47: Otchipwe Grammar, pp. 87, 412.]

[Footnote 48: Mr. Rand's Micmac Vocabulary, in Schoolcraft's Collections, vol. v. p. 579.]

Among Abnaki place-names having this form, the following deserve notice:--

_A[n]mes[oo]k-ka[n]tti_, 'where there is plenty of _alewives_ or _herrings_;' from Abn. _a[n]ms[oo]ak_ (Narr. _aumsûog_; Mass. _ômmissuog_, cotton;) literally, 'small fishes,' but appropriated to fish of the herring tribe, including alewives and menhaden or bony-fish. Râle gives this as the name of one of the Abnaki villages on or near the river 'Aghenibekki.' It is the same, probably, as the 'Meesee Contee' or 'Meesucontee,' at Farmington Falls, on Sandy River, Me.[49] With the suffix of 'place' or 'land,' it has been written _Amessagunticook_ and _Amasaquanteg_.

[Footnote 49: Coll. Me. Hist. Society, iv. 31, 105.]

'_Amoscoggin_,' 'Ammarescoggen,' &c., and the '_Aumoughcawgen_' of Capt. John Smith, names given to the Kennebec or its main western branch, the Androscoggin,[50]--appear to have belonged, originally, to 'fishing places' on the river, from Abn. _a[n]m's[oo]a-khíge_, or _a[n]m's[oo]a-ka[n]gan_. 'Amoskeag,' at the falls of the Merrimack, has the same meaning, probably; _a[n]m's[oo]a-khíge_ (Mass. _ômmissakkeag_), a 'fishing-place for alewives.' It certainly does _not_ mean 'beavers,' or 'pond or marsh' of beavers,--as Mr. Schoolcraft supposed it to mean.[51]

[Footnote 50: The statement that the Androscoggin received its present name in compliment to Edmond Andros, about 1684, is erroneous. This form of the name appears as early as 1639, in the release by Thomas Purchase to the Governor of Massachusetts,--correctly printed (from the original draft in the handwriting of Thomas Lechford) in Mass. Records, vol. i. p. 272.]

[Footnote 51: Information respecting the Indian Tribes, &c., vol. iii. p. 526.]

_Madamiscomtis_ or _Mattammiscontis_, the name of a tributary of the Penobscot and of a town in Lincoln county, Me., was translated by Mr. Greenleaf, in 1823, "Young Alewive stream;" but it appears to represent _met-a[n]ms[oo]ak-ka[n]tti_, 'a place where there _has been_ (but is not now) plenty of alewives,' or to which they no longer resort. Compare Râle's _met-a[n]m[oo]ak_, "les poissons ont faites leurs oeufs; ils s'en sont allés; il n'y en a plus."

_Cobbosseecontee_ river, in the south part of Kennebec county, is named from a place near "the mouth of the stream, where it adjoineth itself to Kennebec river,"[52] and 'where there was plenty of sturgeons,'--_kabassak-ka[n]tti_.

[Footnote 52: Depositions in Coll. Me. Histor. Society, iv. 113.]

'_Peskadamioukkanti_' is given by Charlevoix, as the Indian name of "the river of the Etchemins," that is, the St. Croix,--a name which is now corrupted to _Passamaquoddy_; but this latter form of the name is probably derived from the _Etchemin_, while Charlevoix wrote the _Abnaki_ form. The Rev. Elijah Kellogg, in 1828,[53] gave, as the meaning of 'Passamaquoddie,' 'pollock fish,' and the Rev. Mr. Rand translates 'Pestumoo-kwoddy' by 'pollock ground.'[54] Cotton's vocabulary gives '_pâkonnótam_' for 'haddock.' Perhaps _peskadami[oo]k_, like _a[n]ms[oo]ak_, belonged to more than one species of fish.

[Footnote 53: 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., iii. 181.]

[Footnote 54: Dawson's Acadian Geology, 2d ed., (London, 1868), pp. 3, 8.]

Of Etchemin and Micmac words having a similar termination, we find among others,--

_Shubenacadie_ (_Chebenacardie_ on Charlevoix' map, and _Shebenacadia_ on Jeffry's map of 1775). One of the principal rivers of Nova Scotia, was so named because '_sipen-ak_ were plenty there.' Professor Dawson was informed by an "ancient Micmac patriarch," that "_Shuben_ or _Sgabun_ means ground-nuts or Indian potatoes," and by the Rev. Mr. Rand, of Hantsport, N.S., that "_segubbun_ is a ground-nut, and _Segubbuna-kaddy_ is the place or region of ground-nuts," &c.[55] It is not quite certain that _shuben_ and _segubbun_ denote the same esculent root. The Abnaki name of the wild potato or ground-nut was _pen_, pl. _penak_ (Chip. _opin-[=i]g_; Del. _obben-ak_); '_sipen_,' which is obviously the equivalent of _sheben_, Râle describes as "blanches, plus grosses que des _penak_:" and _sheep'n-ak_ is the modern Abnaki (Penobscot) name for the bulbous roots of the Yellow Lily (_Lilium Canadense_). Thoreau's Indian guide in the 'Maine Woods' told him that these bulbs "were good for soup, that is to cook with meat to thicken it,"--and taught him how to prepare them.[56] Josselyn mentions such "a water-lily, with yellow flowers," of which "the Indians eat the roots" boiled.[57]

[Footnote 55: Acadian Geology, pp. 1, 3.]

[Footnote 56: Maine Woods, pp. 194, 284, 326.]

[Footnote 57: Voyages, p. 44.]

"_Segoonuma-kaddy_, place of _gaspereaux_; Gaspereau or Alewife River," "_Boonamoo-kwoddy_, Tom Cod ground," and "_Kata-kaddy_, eel-ground,"--are given by Professor Dawson, on Mr. Rand's authority. _Segoonumak_ is the equivalent of Mass. and Narr. _sequanamâuquock_, 'spring (or early summer) fish,' by R. Williams translated 'bream.' And _boonamoo_,--the _ponamo_ of Charlevoix (i. 127), who confounded it with some 'species of dog-fish (chien de mer),'--is the _ap[oo]na[n]-mes[oo]_ of Rasles and _papônaumsu_, 'winter fish,' of Roger Williams, 'which some call frost-fish,'--_Morrhua pruinosa_.

The frequent occurrence of this termination in Micmac, Etchemin and Abnaki local names gives probability to the conjecture, that it came to be regarded as a general name for the region which these tribes inhabited,--'L'arcadia,' 'l'Accadie,' and 'la Cadie,' of early geographers and voyagers. Dr. Kohl has not found this name on any earlier map than that published by Girolamo Ruscelli in 1561.[58] That it is of Indian origin there is hardly room for doubt, and of two or three possible derivations, that from the terminal _-kâdi_, _-kodiah_, or _-ka[n]tti_, is on the whole preferable. But this termination, in the sense of 'place of abundance' or in that of 'ground, land, or place,' cannot be used _separately_, as an independent word, in any one of the languages which have been mentioned; and it is singular that, in two or three instances, only this termination should have been preserved after the first and more important component of the name was lost.

[Footnote 58: See Coll. Me. Hist. Society, 2d Ser., vol. i. p. 234.]

There are two Abnaki words which are not unlike _-ka[n]tti_ in sound, one or both of which may perhaps be found in some local names: (1) _ka[oo]di_, 'where he sleeps,' a _lodging place_ of men or animals; and (2) _ak[oo]daï[oo]i_, in composition or as a prefix, _ak[oo]dé_, 'against the current,' up-stream; as in _ned-ak[oo]té'hémen_, 'I go up stream,' and _[oo]derak[oo]da[n]na[n]_, 'the fish go up stream.' Some such synthesis may have given names to fishing-places on tidal rivers, and I am more inclined to regard the name of 'Tracadie' or 'Tracody' as a corruption of _[oo]derak[oo]da[n]_, than to derive it (with Professor Dawson[59] and the Rev. Mr. Rand) from "_Tulluk-kaddy_; probably, place of residence; dwelling place,"--or rather (for the termination requires this), where residences or dwellings are _plenty_,--where there is _abundance_ of dwelling place. There is a Tracadie in Nova Scotia, another (_Tregaté_, of Champlain) on the coast of New Brunswick, a Tracody or Tracady Bay in Prince Edward's Island, and a Tracadigash Point in Chaleur Bay.

[Footnote 59: Acadian Geology, l.c.]

Thevet, in _La Cosmographie universelle_,[60] gives an account of his visit in 1556, to "one of the finest rivers in the whole world which we call _Norumbegue_, and the aborigines _Agoncy_,"--now Penobscot Bay. In 'Agoncy' we have, I conjecture, another form of the Abnaki _-ka[n]tti_, and an equivalent of 'Acadie.'

[Footnote 60: Cited by Dr. Kohl, in Coll. Me. Hist. Society, N.S., i. 416.]

* * * * *

II. Names formed from a single ground-word or substantival,--with or without a locative or other suffix.

To this class belong some names already noticed in connection with compound names to which they are related; such as, _Wachu-set_, 'near the mountain;' _Menahan_ (_Menan_), _Manati_, _Manathaan_, 'island;' _Manataan-ung_, _Aquedn-et_, 'on the island,' &c. Of the many which might be added to these, the limits of this paper permit me to mention only a few.

1. NÂÏAG, 'a corner, angle, or point.' This is a verbal, formed from _nâ-i_, 'it is angular,' 'it _corners_.' Eliot wrote "_yaue naiyag wetu_" for the "four corners of a house," Job i. 19. Sometimes, _nâi_ receives, instead of the formative _-ag_, the locative affix (_nâï-it_ or _nâï-ut_); sometimes it is used as an adjectival prefixed to _auke_, 'land.' One or another of these forms serves as the name of a great number of river and sea-coast 'points.' In Connecticut, we find a '_Nayaug_' at the southern extremity of Mason's Island in Mystic Bay, and '_Noank_' (formerly written, _Naweag_, _Naiwayonk_, _Noïank_, &c.) at the west point of Mystic River's mouth, in Groton; _Noag_ or _Noyaug_, in Glastenbury, &c. In Rhode Island, _Nayatt_ or _Nayot_ point in Barrington, on Providence Bay, and _Nahiganset_ or Narragansett, 'the country about the Point.'[61] On Long Island, _Nyack_ on Peconick Bay, Southampton,[62] and another at the west end of the Island, opposite Coney Island. There is also a _Nyack_ on the west side of the Tappan Sea, in New Jersey.

[Footnote 61: See _Narragansett Club Publications_, vol. i. p. 22 (note 6).]

[Footnote 62: On Block's Map, 1616, the "Nahicans" are marked on the easternmost point of Long Island.]

2. WONKUN, 'bended,' 'a bend,' was sometimes used without affix. The Abnaki equivalent is _[oo]a[n]ghíghen_, 'courbe,' 'croché' (Râle). There was a _Wongun_, on the Connecticut, between Glastenbury and Wethersfield, and another, more considerable, a few miles below, in Middletown. _Wonki_ is found in compound names, as an adjectival; as in _Wonki-tuk_, 'bent river,' on the Quinebaug, between Plainfield and Canterbury,--written by early recorders, 'Wongattuck,' 'Wanungatuck,' &c., and at last transferred from its proper place to a _hill_ and _brook_ west of the river, where it is disguised as _Nunkertunk_. The Great Bend between Hadley and Hatfield, Mass., was called _Kuppo-wonkun-ohk_, 'close bend place,' or 'place shut-in by a bend.' A tract of meadow west of this bend was called, in 1660, 'Cappowonganick,' and 'Capawonk,' and still retains, I believe, the latter name.[63] _Wnogquetookoke_, the Indian name of Stockbridge, Mass., as written by Dr. Edwards in the Muhhecan dialect, describes "a bend-of-the-river place."

[Footnote 63: Judd's History of Hadley, 115, 116, 117.]

Another Abnaki word meaning 'curved,' 'crooked,'--_pika[n]ghén_--occurs in the name _Pika[n]ghenahik_, now 'Crooked Island,' in Penobscot River.[64]

[Footnote 64: Mr. Moses Greenleaf, in 1823, wrote this name, _Bakungunahik_.]

3. HÓCQUAUN (UHQUÔN, Eliot), 'hook-shaped,' 'a hook,'--is the base of _Hoccanum_, the name of a tract of land and the stream which bounds it, in East Hartford, and of other Hoccanums, in Hadley and in Yarmouth, Mass. Heckewelder[65] wrote "_Okhúcquan, Woâkhúcquoan_ or (short) _Húcquan_," for the modern 'Occoquan,' the name of a river in Virginia, and remarked: "All these names signify _a hook_." Campanius has '_hóckung_' for 'a hook.'

[Footnote 65: On Indian names, in Trans. Am. Phil. Society, N.S., vol. iv., p. 377.]

_Hackensack_ may have had its name from the _húcquan-sauk_, 'hook mouth,' by which the waters of Newark Bay find their way, around Bergen Point, by the Kill van Cul, to New York Bay.

3. [Transcriber's Note: sic] SÓHK or SAUK, a root that denotes 'pouring out,' is the base of many local names for 'the outlet' or 'discharge' of a river or lake. The Abnaki forms, _sa[n]g[oo]k_, 'sortie de la rivière (seu) la source,' and _sa[n]ghede'teg[oo]é_ [= Mass. _saukituk_,] gave names to _Saco_ in Maine, to the river which has its outflow at that place, and to _Sagadahock_ (_sa[n]ghede'aki_), 'land at the mouth' of Kennebeck river.