The Composition of Indian Geographical Names | Page 8

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 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 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 Rale, '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: 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. 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