The Composition of Indian Geographical Names | Page 3

Powhattans and other
Virginian tribes, the 'south country,' or sowan-ohke, as Eliot wrote it, in Gen. xxiv. 62.
With the adjectival sucki, 'dark-colored,' 'blackish,' we have the aboriginal name of the
South Meadow in Hartford,--sucki-ohke, (written Sicaiook, Suckiaug, &c.), 'black earth.'
Wuskowhanan-auk-it, 'at the pigeon 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.'