_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.
_Saucon_, the name of a creek and township in Northampton county,
Penn., "denotes (says Heckewelder[66]) the outlet of a smaller stream
into a larger one,"--which restricts the denotation too narrowly. The
name means "the outlet,"--and nothing more. Another _Soh´coon_, or
(with the locative) _Saukunk_, "at the mouth" of the Big Beaver, on
the Ohio,--now in the township of Beaver, Penn.,--was a well known
rendezvous of Indian war parties.[67]
[Footnote 66: Ibid. p. 357.]
[Footnote 67: Paper on Indian Names, ut supra, p. 366; and 3 Mass.
Historical Collections, vi. 145. [Compare, the Iroquois _Swa-deh´_ and
_Oswa´-go_ (modern _Oswego_), which has the same meaning as Alg.
_sauki_,--"flowing out."--_Morgan's League of the Iroquois_.]]
_Saganaum_, _Sagana_, now _Saginaw_[68] Bay, on Lake Huron, received
its name from the mouth of the river which flows through it to the
lake.
[Footnote 68: _Saguinam_, Charlevoix, i. 501; iii. 279.]
The _Mississagas_ were people of the _missi-sauk_, _missi-sague_, or
(with locative) _missi-sak-ing_,[69] that is 'great outlet.' In the
last half of the seventeenth century they were seated on the banks of
a river which is described as flowing into Lake Huron some twenty or
thirty leagues south of the Sault Ste. Marie (the same river probably
that is now known as the Mississauga, emptying into Manitou Bay,) and
nearly opposite the Straits of Mississauga on the South side of the
Bay, between Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands. So little is known
however of the history and migrations of this people, that it is
perhaps impossible now to identify the 'great outlet' from which they
first had their name.
[Footnote 69: _Relations des Jésuites_, 1658, p. 22; 1648, p. 62;
1671, pp. 25, 31.]
The _Saguenay_ (Sagnay, Sagné, Saghuny, etc.), the great tributary of
the St. Lawrence, was so called either from the well-known
trading-place at its mouth, the annual resort of the Montagnars and
all the eastern tribes,[70] or more probably from the 'Grand
Discharge'[71] of its main stream from Lake St. John and its strong
current to and past the rapids at Chicoutimi, and thence on to the St.
Lawrence.[72] Near Lake St. John and the Grand Discharge was another
rendezvous of the scattered tribes. The missionary Saint-Simon in 1671
described this place as one at which "all the nations inhabiting the
country between the two seas (towards the east and north) assembled to
barter their furs." Hind's Exploration of Labrador, ii. 23.
[Footnote 70: Charlevoix, Nouv. France, iii. 65; Gallatin's Synopsis,
p. 24.]
[Footnote 71: This name is still retained.]
[Footnote 72: When first discovered the Saguenay was not regarded as a
river, but as a strait or passage by which the waters of some northern
sea flowed to the St. Lawrence. But on a French map of 1543, the 'R.
de Sagnay' and the country of 'Sagnay' are laid down. See Maine Hist.
Soc. Collections, 2d Series, vol. i., pp. 331, 354. Charlevoix gives
_Pitchitaouichetz_, as the Indian name of the River.]
In composition with _-tuk_, 'river' or 'tidal stream,' _sauki_
(adjectival) gave names to '_Soakatuck_,' now Saugatuck, the mouth of
a river in Fairfield county, Conn.; to '_Sawahquatock_,' or
'_Sawkatuck-et_,' at the outlet of Long Pond or mouth of Herring
River, in Harwich, Mass.; and perhaps to _Massaugatucket_,
(_missi-saukituk-ut_?), in Marshfield, Mass., and in South Kingston,
R.I.,--a name which, in both places, has been shortened to
Saquatucket.
'_Winnipiseogee_' (pronounced _Win´ ni pe sauk´ e_,) is compounded of
_winni_, _nippe_, and _sauki_, 'good-water discharge,' and the name
must have belonged originally to the _outlet_ by which the waters of
the lake pass to the Merrimack, rather than to the lake itself.
Winnepesauke, Wenepesioco and (with the locative) Winnipesiockett, are
among the early forms of the name. The translation of this synthesis
by 'the Smile of the Great Spirit' is sheer nonsense. Another, first
proposed by the late Judge Potter of New Hampshire, in his History of
Manchester (p. 27),[73]--'the beautiful water of the high place,'--is
demonstrably wrong. It assumes that _is_ or _es_ represents _kees_,
meaning 'high;' to which assumption there are two objections: first,
that there is no evidence that such a word as _kees_, meaning 'high,'
is found in any Algonkin language, and secondly, that if there be such
a word, it must retain its significant root, in any synthesis of which
it makes part,--in other words, that _kees_ could not drop its initial
_k_ and preserve its meaning. I was at first inclined to accept the
more probable translation proposed by 'S.F.S.' [S.F. Streeter?] in
the Historical Magazine for August, 1857,[74]--"the land of the placid
or beautiful lake;" but, in the dialects of New England, _nippisse_ or
_nips_, a diminutive of _nippe_, 'water,' is never used for _paug_,
'lake' or 'standing water;'[75] and if it were sometimes so used, the
extent of Lake Winnepiseogee forbids it to be classed with the 'small
lakes' or 'ponds,' to which, only, the _diminutive_ is appropriate.
[Footnote 73: And in the _Historical Magazine_, vol. i. p. 246.]
[Footnote 74: Vol. i. p. 246.]
[Footnote 75: See pp. 14, 15.]
4. NASHAUÉ (Chip. _nássawaiï_ and _ashawiwi_), 'mid-way,' or
'between,' and with _ohke_ or _auk_ added, 'the land between' or 'the
half-way place,'--was the name of several localities. The tract on
which Lancaster, in Worcester county (Mass.) was settled, was
'between' the branches of the river, and so it was called '_Nashaway_'
or '_Nashawake_' (_nashaué-ohke_); and this name was afterwards
transferred from the territory to the river itself. There was another
_Nashaway_ in Connecticut, between Quinnebaug and Five-Mile Rivers in
Windham county, and here, too, the mutilated name of the
_nashaue-ohke_ was transferred, as _Ashawog_ or _Assawog_, to the
Five-Mile River. _Natchaug_ in the same county, the name of the
eastern branch of Shetucket river, belonged originally to the tract
'between' the eastern and western branches; and the Shetucket itself
borrows a name (_nashaue-tuk-ut_) from its place 'between' Yantic and
Quinebaug rivers. A neck of land (now in Griswold, Conn.) "between
Pachaug River and a brook that comes into it from the south," one of
the Muhhekan east boundaries, was called sometimes, _Shawwunk_, 'at
the place between,'--sometimes _Shawwâmug_ (_nashaué-amaug_), 'the
fishing-place between' the rivers, or the 'half-way
fishing-place.'[76]
[Footnote 76: Chandler's Survey and Map of the Mohegan country, 1705.
Compare the Chip. _ashawiwi-sitagon_, "a place from which water runs
two ways," a dividing ridge or portage _between_ river courses. Owen's
Geological Survey of Wisconsin, etc., p. 312.]
5. ASHIM, is once used by Eliot (Cant. iv. 12) for 'fountain.' It
denoted a _spring_ or brook from which water was obtained for
drinking. In the Abnaki, _asiem nebi_, 'il puise de l'eau;' and
_ned-a'sihibe_, 'je puise de l'eau, _fonti vel fluvio_.' (Rasles.)
_Winne-ashim-ut_, 'at the good spring,' near Romney Marsh, is now
Chelsea, Mass. The name appears in deeds and records as Winnisimmet,
Winisemit, Winnet Semet, etc. The author of the 'New English Canaan'
informs us (book 2, ch. 8), that "At _Weenasemute_ is a water, the
virtue whereof is, to cure barrennesse. The place taketh his name of
that fountaine, which signifieth _quick spring_, or _quickning
spring_. Probatum."
_Ashimuit_ or _Shumuit_, an Indian village near the line between
Sandwich and Falmouth, Mass.,--_Shaume_, a neck and river in Sandwich
(the _Chawum_ of Capt. John Smith?),--_Shimmoah_, an Indian village on
Nantucket,--may all have derived their names from springs resorted to
by the natives, as was suggested by the Rev. Samuel Deane in a paper
in _Mass. Hist. Collections_, 2d Series, vol. x. pp. 173, 174.
6. MATTAPPAN, a participle of _mattappu_ (Chip. _namátabi_), 'he sits
down,' denotes a 'sitting-down place,' or, as generally employed in
local names, _the end of a portage_ between two rivers or from one arm
of the sea to another,--where the canoe was launched again and its
bearers re-embarked. Râle translates the Abnaki equivalent,
_mata[n]be_, by 'il va au bord de l'eau,--a la grève pour
s'embarquer,' and _meta[n]béniganik_, by 'au bout de delà du portage.'
_Mattapan-ock_, afterwards shortened to _Mattapan_, that part of
Dorchester Neck (South Boston) where "the west country people were set
down" in 1630,[77] may have been so called because it was the end of a
carrying place from South Bay to Dorchester Bay, across the narrowest
part of the peninsula, or--as seems highly probable--because it was
the temporary 'sitting-down place' of the new comers. Elsewhere, we
find the name evidently associated with _portage_.
[Footnote 77: Blake's Annals of Dorchester, p. 9; Winthrop's Journal,
vol. i. p. 28.]
On Smith's Map of Virginia, one '_Mattapanient_' appears as the name
of the northern fork (now the _Mattápony_) of Pamaunk (York) River;
another (_Mattpanient_) near the head waters of the Pawtuxunt; and a
third on the 'Chickahamania' not far above its confluence with
Powhatan (James) River.
_Mattapoiset_, on an inlet of Buzzard's Bay, in Rochester,
Mass.,--another Mattapoiset or 'Mattapuyst,' now Gardner's Neck, in
Swanzea,--and 'Mattapeaset' or 'Mattabesic,' on the great bend of the
Connecticut (now Middletown), derived their names from the same word,
probably.
On a map of Lake Superior, made by Jesuit missionaries and published
in Paris in 1672, the stream which is marked on modern maps as
'Rivière aux Traines' or 'Train River,' is named 'R. _Mataban_.' The
small lake from which it flows is the 'end of portage' between the
waters of Lake Michigan and those of Lake Superior.
7. CHABENUK, 'a bound mark'; literally, 'that which separates or
divides.' A hill in Griswold, Conn., which was anciently one of the
Muhhekan east bound-marks, was called _Chabinu[n]k_, 'Atchaubennuck,'
and 'Chabunnuck.' The village of praying Indians in Dudley (now
Webster?) Mass., was named _Chabanakongkomuk_ (Eliot, 1668,) or
_-ongkomum_, and the Great Pond still retains, it is said, the name of
Chaubenagungamaug (_chabenukong-amaug_?), "the boundary
fishing-place." This pond was a bound mark between the Nipmucks and
the Muhhekans, and was resorted to by Indians of both nations.
* * * * *
III. Participials and verbals employed as place-names may generally,
as was before remarked, be referred to one or the other of the two
preceding classes. The distinction between noun and verb is less
clearly marked in Indian grammar than in English. The name
_Mushauwomuk_ (corrupted to _Shawmut_) may be regarded as a
participle from the verb _mushau[oo]m_ (Narr. _mishoonhom_) 'he goes
by boat,'--or as a noun, meaning 'a ferry,'--or as a name of the first
class, compounded of the adjectival _mush[oo]-n_, 'boat or canoe,' and
_wom[oo]-uk_, habitual or customary _going_, i.e., 'where there is
going-by-boat.'
The analysis of names of this class is not easy. In most cases, its
results must be regarded as merely provisional. Without some clue
supplied by history or tradition and without accurate knowledge of the
locality to which the name belongs, or _is supposed_ to belong, one
can never be certain of having found the right key to the synthesis,
however well it may seem to fit the lock. Experience Mayhew writing
from Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, in 1722, gives the Indian name of
the place where he was living as _Nimpanickhickanuh_. If he had not
added the information that the name "signifies in English, _The place
of thunder clefts_," and that it was so called "because there was once
a tree there split in pieces by the thunder," it is not likely that
any one in this generation would have discovered its precise
meaning,--though it might have been conjectured that _neimpau_, or
_nimbau_, 'thunder,' made a part of it.
_Quilútámende_ was (Heckewelder tells us[78]) the Delaware name of a
place on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, where, as the Indians say,
"in their wars with the Five Nations, they fell by surprise upon their
enemies. The word or name of this place is therefore, _Where we came
unawares upon them_, &c." Without the tradition, the meaning of the
name would not have been guessed,--or, if guessed, would not have been
confidently accepted.
[Footnote 78: On Indian Names, in _Trans. Am. Philos. Society_, N.S.
iv. 361.]