Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/131

Rh with the dusky brothers for his furs or when he bargained for his land it was convenient to employ the geographical terms already in use by the Indian. Sometimes the white man gave the river or lake a new name, as did Hudson and De la Ware and Champlain, but oftener he accepted the original, and today the most frequent reminder that we have of the unfortunate race is the hundreds of Indian names, mostly of rivers or lakes, sometimes of cities, counties, and states, named after the tribes that dwelt in the vicinity.

The extent to which the early settlers adopted Indian names differs widely in different parts of the country. Twenty- four rivers of Maine, 17 out of 28 rivers of Connecticut, 40 rivers in Georgia, 32 in Florida, and most of those of Penn- sylvania, New York, Ohio, and Indiana have Indian names. In Kentucky, Ten- nessee, and the large majority of trans- Mississippi States Indian words are much less common than they are east of the Appalachians. For example, only 7 of Tennessee's 30 important streams carry Indian names, and not one large stream wholly in Kentucky and not one in the great State of Montana has an Indian name.

Next after rivers lakes remind us most frequently by their names that the red man once dwelt by their waters. Hundreds of New England lakes, particularly of Maine, most of the important lakes of New York, and 4 out of the 5 Great Lakes tell of the Indian. Even in those states where rivers and lakes most generally bear Indian names the political divisions, the mountains, and the shore features do not. Only 2 of the original 13 states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, and 3 of the mountain states, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming, have Indian names, while 16 of the 18 Mississippi Valley states have such names. The two exceptions are Wis- consin and Louisiana, both of French origin.

Of the 150 cities in the United States with 25,000 or more people less than a dozen have names of Indian origin. In most cases where states, counties, or cities bear Indian names they have borrowed them from rivers or lakes which already bore them. New York has 20 counties with Indian names, and leads all of the states in this particular. Six out of the 16 counties of Maine have Indian names; but aside from Maine and New York Indian words form but a very small proportion of the county names in the United States. In the geographical names of Indian origin the differences in tribal dialects are everywhere striking. The horrible words of the Russian language do not differ more widely from the soft, mellow language of Italy or France than do the Indian names in northern New England from those of New York. Indian words in Connecticut differ radically in sound from those of New Jersey, and those of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida differ equally from all others.

Contrast the unspeakable names of the lakes of Maine with the delightfully euphonious names of the lakes of New York:

Maine New York Chesuncook Seneca Pamedecook Owasco Motesentock Otsego Molechunkemunk Onondaga Moostocmaguntic Cayuga Mallawamkiag Cayuta Cauquomogomoc Oneida

Again note the difference in sound of the words from different parts of Connecticut :

Mashapaug Housatonic Pistepaug Mystic Wangumbaug Niantic Waremaug Scantic Pomeraug Willimantic Quinebaug Yantic

It is evident that the above words tell of very different dialects, and hence of different tribes. The characteristic