Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/475

 Forgotten Indian P lace-Names in the Adirondacks. 127

A curious instance of an Abenaki popular etymology of a purely foreign term is seen in the name for St. Regis Reserve, P. O. and N. Y. ; i. c. Po'hrfzds'ne, which Sabattis interprets ' half-shriek,' explaining it as referring to victories gained by his people over the Iroquois at that point. He also gives the name of the St. Regis River as Po'kulzasnetckiv, and of St. Regis Lake near Paul Smith's, Franklin County, as Po'kulzds ne-nepes. There can be no doubt that Pd'ktuzdsne'is an " Algicised " form from the original Mohawk name for St. Regis Reserve; viz., Akwesdsne, 'the place where the partridge drums,' a word compounded of dkwesds — ivdkwesds x + the locatixe suffix -ne. Wakwesas itself is a compound of okwesen, ' par- tridge,' + -ds, which expresses the idea 'strike many blows,' as a drumming partridge does with its wings. In the Abenaki form Po'kulzdstie, the first element is the well-known, po'kui, 'half;' cf. Rasle, p. 561, p8'k8ie, ' nne moitie en large.' -The second element, •zdsne, as given by Sabattis, is undoubtedly from the stem of the verb ne-sessinan, 'I bewail it' 2 (inanimate), Rasle, p. 508.

All the terms just treated were given to me as original Abenaki names of the localities, applied independently of any English nomen- clature, and I see no reason to doubt this. In the following names my informant seemed a little uncertain as to whether the Indian terminology was independent of the English or not. He was unable to say whether the names in question were given first by his own people, or whether they were subsequent translations of English names. I cite them, however, as being of philological value for the study of Abenaki.

Bog Lake, Mukwd'kwdga! mdk, and Bog River, Mukwa'kwtekw, contain mukwa'kw, ' bog,' anc. meg8ak (Rasle, p. 483, ' marccage '). This word is perhaps connected with mek8-, mod. mkul, 'red,' and is an allusion to the color of the bottom (so O'Brien).

Round Lake, Pdtegwogd'mdk, and Round Pond, Pdtcgzvogd 'mdszk (dim.), are perfectly clear. For pdtcgun-, ' round,' cf. mod. pet'gwe- lomsai, ' whirlwind,' e.g. ' wind blowing in a circle,' and the verb form ti petcgibcnd, ' we turn, return ' (inclusive we).

1 Forbes gives the inflection of akwesds— wakwesas as follows : — kdkwesas, ' I drum with my wings like a partridge.'

sdkwesds, ' thou,' etc. rdkwesds, ' he,' etc.

2 The change of original s to z in Po'knizds'ne' is due to the preceding vowel. Precisely the same phenomenon is seen in sibosis, 'brook,' dim. of sibo, ' river,' but siboslzik, 'in the brook.' I find also k'chl zibo, 'big river,' for Weill sibo. The principle seems to be that when s is preceded by an /-vowel, and followed by a vowel, it softens to z. A similar softening of / to d is seen in the phrases New York tali ' at N. Y.,' but yu dali 'at this place,' e.g. 'here.' This is not repre- sented in the modern system of writing Abenaki.

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