Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/181

Rh and cataracts, of hill-tops, glens, and valleys, through the continent. Wherever this has been done it is a matter of gratification to the taste and sentiment of our day. Of the six New England States, only two — Massachusetts and Connecticut — bear their original titles. The new States and Territories of the West, and some of our grandest rivers and lakes, are favored in this respect. Most fitly do some of the scenes richly wrought into the romantic stories of French missionaries and explorers — Marquette, Allouez, Hennepin, La Salle, and others — retain their memories. The greatest of our cataracts perpetuates, in the roar of its waters, the sonorous melody of its aboriginal name. It is to be regretted, however, that as it was on St. Anthony's day that Hennepin discovered the western cascade, he should have displaced for that title the Indian name of the “Falling Waters of the Mississippi.” Worse yet was the rejection of the beautiful name Horicon, borne by the fairest of our lakes, allowed to do honor to an English king (George). It may be that, under some æsthetic enthusiasm asserting itself among us, there may be a general consent to restore the Indian nomenclature over our country for memorial or penitential purposes. Mount Desert was once “Pemetie.”

Another very curious and interesting token of the relations into which the Indians put themselves with the animals, as their kindred, if not their Darwinian progenitors, is found in their choice of symbols from the creatures with which they were familiar, as the totems, or badge-marks, of their tribes and families. At first sight these