The Composition of Indian Geographical Names | Page 3

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