The Composition of Indian Geographical Names | Page 9

is the locative affix.) New York Island was sometimes spoken of as 'the island'--'Manaté,' '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.)]
[Footnote 44: N.Y. Hist. Soc. Collections, iii. 375.]
Manisses or Monasses, as Block Island was called, is another form of the diminutive,--from munnoh; and Manhasset, otherwise written, Munhansick, a name of Shelter Island, is the same diminutive with the locative affix, munna-es-et. So is 'Manusses' or 'Mennewies,' an island near Rye, N.Y.,--now written (with the southern form of the locative,) Manussing.
Montauk Point, formerly Montauket, Montacut, and by Roger Williams, Munnawtawkit, is probably from manati, auke, and -it locative; 'in the Island country,' or 'country of the Islanders.'
The other name of 'Island,' in Algonkin languages, is AHQUEDNE or OCQUIDNE; with the locative; ahquednet, as in Acts xxvii. 16. (Compare, Cree, ákootin, "it suspends, is sit-uate, e.g. an island in the water," from akoo, a verbal root "expressive of a state of rest." Howse's Grammar, p. 152. Micmac, agwitk, "it is in the water;" whence, Ep-agwit, "it lies [sits?] in the water,"[45] the Indian name of Prince Edward's Island.) This appears to have been restricted in its application, to islands lying near the main land or spoken of with reference to the main land. Roger Williams learned from the Narragansetts to call Rhode Island, Aquiday, Aquednet, &c., 'the Island' or 'at the Island,' and a "little island in the mouth of the Bay," was Aquedenesick,[46] or Aquidneset, i.e. 'at the small island.'
[Footnote 45: Dawson's Acadian Geology, App. p. 673.]
[Footnote 46: 4th Mass. Hist. Collections, vi. 267.]
Chippaquiddick, the modern name of an island divided by a narrow strait from Martha's Vineyard, is from cheppi-aquidne, 'separated island.'
Abnaki names ending in -ka[n]tti, or -kontee (Mass. -kontu; Etchemin or Maliseet, -kodiah, -quoddy; Micmac, -ka[n]di, or -aikadee;) may be placed with those of the first class, though this termination, representing a substantival component, is really only the locative affix of nouns in the indefinite plural. Exact location was denoted by affixing, to inanimate nouns-singular, -et, -it or -ut; proximity, or something less than exact location, by -set, (interposing s, the characteristic of diminutives and derogatives) between the noun and affix. Plural nouns, representing a _definite number of individuals, or a number which might be regarded as_ definite, received -ettu, -ittu, or -uttu, in the locative: but if the number was indefinite, or many individuals were spoken of collectively, the affix was -kontu, denoting 'where many are,' or 'place of abundance.' For example, wadchu, mountain; wadchu-ut, to, on, or at the mountain; wadchu-set, near the mountain; wadchuuttu (or -ehtu), in or among certain mountains, known or indicated (as in Eliot's version of Numbers xxxiii. 47, 48); wadchué-kontu, among mountains, where there are a great many mountains, for 'in the hill country,' Joshua xiii. 6. So, nippe-kontu, 'in the waters,' i.e. in many waters, or 'where there is much water,' Deut. iv. 18; v. 8. In Deuteronomy xi. 11, the conversion to a verb of a noun which had previously received this affix, shows that the idea of abundance or of multitude is associated with it: "ohke wadchuuhkontu[oo]," i.e. wadechué-kontu-[oo], "the land is a land of hills," that is, where are many hills, or where hills are plenty.
This form of verb was rarely used by Eliot and is not alluded to in his Grammar. It appears to have been less common in the Massachusetts than in most of the other Algonkin languages. In the Chippewa, an 'abundance verb,' as Baraga[47] calls it, may be formed from any noun, by adding -ka or -[)i]ka for the indicative present: in the Cree, by adding -skow or -ooskow. In the Abnaki, -ka or -k[oo], or -ik[oo], forms similar verbs, and verbals. The final 'tti of ka[n]tti, represents the impersonal a'tté, eto, 'there belongs to it,' 'there is there,' il y a. (Abn. meskik[oo]i'ka[n]tti, 'where there is abundance of grass,' is the equivalent of the Micmac "m'skeegoo-aicadee, a meadow."[48])
[Footnote 47: Otchipwe Grammar, pp. 87, 412.]
[Footnote 48: Mr. Rand's Micmac Vocabulary, in Schoolcraft's Collections, vol. v. p. 579.]
Among Abnaki place-names having this form, the following deserve notice:--
A[n]mes[oo]k-ka[n]tti, 'where there is plenty of alewives or herrings;' from Abn. a[n]ms[oo]ak (Narr. aums?og; Mass. ?mmissuog, cotton;) literally, 'small fishes,' but appropriated to fish of the herring tribe, including alewives and menhaden or bony-fish. Rale gives this as the name of one of the Abnaki villages on or near the river 'Aghenibekki.' It is the same, probably, as