Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/474

 126 Journal of A merican Folk-L ore.

(New Hampshire), 'river branching off,' from ancient Abn. pske + teg8e, the termination for ' river' (mod. pdskd + tekw). The separate word for ' river ' is sibo. To this same stem belong anc. peskua'tekSn, 'branch of a tree,' and the modern verbs poskwenomuk, 'break with the hands ; ' poskwkazvomuk, ' break with the feet ; ' poskwzomuk, ' cut with a knife/ and poskwtahomuk, ' cut with an axe.' The verb pas k- komuk, ' shoot ' {pask-higan, ' gun '), is undoubtedly a variant of the same root.

The name Pdskdngd'mdk is peculiarly appropriate to the geo- graphic position of Tupper Lake, which flows into the Racquette River between Long Lake, where the river begins its course, and Racquette Pond. Tupper Lake thus appeared to the Indians to be a branch of the river. It is really, however, the last of a chain which commences with the series of ponds just north of Little Forked Lake in Hamilton County. The lake now known as Little Tupper was called by the Abenakis Pdskdngd'mdsik, the regular diminutive of Pdskdngd'mdk.

The name Long Lake, now given to the narrow river-like body of water, thirteen miles in length, which is the source of the Rac- quette River, is probably, as Sabattis states, a translation of the Abenaki Kwenogd'mdk, from kwend, 'long,' +gd' mdk. The root kwend appears in Kweni'tcgok, e. g. kwenT, ' long,' + #&w, ending meaning ' river,' + ok, the locative termination. The name Connecti- cut is a corruption of the allied Massachusetts term, which differed only in having the -/ locative termination. The same root kwenl-, 1 long ' appears also in Kwenbddk, * Long Pond,' kwendkueso, ' he is tall,' kwenl, 'during, while,' etc.

Forked Lake, not far from Blue Mountain Lake, was named in Abenaki Nigltdwogd! mdk, evidently with the same meaning as the English term, which is probably a translation from the Indian. As O'Brien points out, the stem here is undoubtedly the same as that seen in Niketous, used to denote the confluence of two branches of the Penobscot. In old Abenaki I find from the same stem nikc- ta8teg8e, ' riviere qui J r ourche' (Rasle, Diet. p. 523). O'Brien gives the same word from Aubery as nik8da8atteg8c, ' confluent de deux rivieres.' That this stem niketa or nik8da8 is identical with that seen in Sabattis's form Ntgltd-wo-gd'mdk is evident.

The Abenaki name for Mt. Marcy, which probably included its neighboring peaks, was Wawobadenik, literally, ' white mountains ' from wawobi-, reduplication (pi.) of wobi, ' white,' + aden, the ter- mination for ' mountain,' + the locative -ik. The separate word for mountain is wajo (see below). It is interesting to note in this connection that Wawobadenik is also the Abenaki term for the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

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