The Composition of Indian Geographical Names Part 2

'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 Ma.s.sachusetts 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. _kaakou-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: Rale gives Abn. _mitsegan_, 'fiante.' Th.o.r.eau, 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 peche la,') is derived from the root _am_ or _ama_, signifying 'to take by the mouth;' whence, _am-au_, 'he fishes with hook and line,' and Del.

_aman_, 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 _ompae_, '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 steat.i.te (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, Ma.s.s., 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: Ma.s.s. 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_ (b.l.o.o.d.y-) minded.']

_Pen.o.bscot_, 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, _Pen.o.bscook_." He gave, as the meaning of this name, "Rocky Falls."

The St. Francis Indians told Th.o.r.eau, 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. _Ha.s.sun_ or _a.s.sun_ (Chip. _a.s.sin'_; Del. _achsin_;) appears in New England names only as an adjectival (_a.s.sune_, _a.s.sini_, 'stony'), but farther north, it occasionally occurs as the substantival component of such names as _Mista.s.sinni_, '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 _ma.s.sa_, 'great,' is formed _ma.s.s-adchu-set_, 'near the great mountain,' or 'great hill country,'--now, _Ma.s.sachusetts_.

'_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]wa.s.s-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 a.n.a.lysis becomes more easy. The meaning of the adjectival is perhaps not quite certain. _K[oo]wa_ (Abn. _k[oo]e_) 'a pine tree,' with its diminutive, _k[oo]wa.s.se_, 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 '_Machkschunk_,' or the Delaware name of 'the bear's mountain.'

In the Abnaki and some other Algonkin dialects, the substantival component of mountain names is -aDENe,--an inseparable noun-generic.

_Katahdin_ (p.r.o.nounced _Ktaadn_ by the Indians of Maine), Abn.

_Ket-adene_, '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_, _-kamike_; Abn. _-kamighe_; Cree, _-gommik_; Powhatan, _-comaco_;) cannot be exactly translated by any one English word. It denotes 'place,' in the sense of _enclosed_, _limited_ or _appropriated_ s.p.a.ce. 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 _sachima-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 _kuppohkomuk_ 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 Rale, 'the main land,'--literally, 'greatest place;' _teteba-kamighe_, 'level place,'

a plain; _pepam-kamighek_, 'the _all_ land,' 'l'univers.'

_Nessa[oo]a-kamighe_, 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 Chaudiere in 1683.[42]

[Footnote 41: Rale, 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. _minis_, a diminutive,) is the more common, but is rarely, if ever, found in composition. The 'Grand _Menan_,' opposite Pa.s.sammaquoddy 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_ (Ma.s.s. _munnohhan_), the _indefinite_ form, or _menates_ (Ma.s.s. _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'--'Manate,'

'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.)]