Part 3

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 'Qunnubbagge' (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 soki-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.; '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.

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. kaaekou-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. 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.

5. -AMAUG, denoting 'A FISHING PLACE' (Abn. amagan, 'on peche la,') is derived from the root am or ama, signifying 'to take by the mouth;' whence, am-aue, '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; Cree, -pisk; Chip. -bik;) denotes hard or flint-like rock; -OMPSK or OBSK, 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--

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. M'squompskut means 'at the red rock.' The sound of the initial m was easily lost to English ears.

Penobscot, a corruption of the Abnaki panaabskek, 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." 'At the fall of the rock' or 'at the descending rock' is a more nearly exact translation. The first syllable, pen- (Abn. pana) represents a root meaning 'to fall from a height,'--as in pan-tek, 'fall of a river' or 'rapids;' pena-ki, 'fall of land,' the descent or downward slope of a mountain, &c.

Keht-ompskqut, or 'Ketumpscut' as it was formerly written,--'at the greatest rock,'--is corrupted to Catumb, the name of a reef off the west end of Fisher's Island.

Tomheganomset--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.

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 (assune, 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.

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, are forms of qunukqu-adchu, 'high mountain,'--afterwards belittled as 'Mount Toby.'

'Kearsarge,' the modern name of two well-known mountains in New Hampshire, disguises kwass-adchu, 'pine mountain.' On Holland's Map, published in 1784, the southern Kearsarge (in Merrimack county) is marked "Kyarsarga Mountain; by the Indians, Cowissewaschook." 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. Kwa (Abn. ke) 'a pine tree,' with its diminutive, kwasse, 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.'

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 (pronounced 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 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 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 in 1698, and earlier.

The Abnaki keta-kamig means, according to Rale, 'the main land,'--literally, 'greatest place;' teteba-kamighe, 'level place,' a plain; pepam-kamighek, 'the all land,' 'l'univers.'

Nessaa-kamighe, meaning 'double place' or 'second place,' was the name of the Abnaki village of St. Francis de Sales, on the St. Lawrence,--to which the mission was removed about 1700, from its first station established near the Falls of the Chaudiere in 1683.

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 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, 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, "who interpret the general name of Manhattans, unto the particular town built upon a little Island; because it signified the whole country and province."