CONCERNING SOME INDIAN PLACE-NAMES IN CANADA. 



By Armon Burwash, Arnprior, Ont. 



In dealing with Indian place-names we are con- 

 fronted by two main difficulties. The first is that 

 the Indian languages never having been written ones 

 that is, written by the people themselves, whose 

 common tongue they were several forms of the 

 same word are often found to have been in use in 

 the same district, and all conveying precisely the 

 same signification. As an instance of this we have 

 Gitchi, Kitchi and Mitchi or Missi, all of them 

 denoting bigness in any one of its different forms. 



The second difficulty is that these languages con- 

 tain a large number of root-words, which, while de- 

 noting a fact, idea, or condition, can hardly be said 

 to have what we understand as a distinct meaning. 

 Take for example saga or saki. It denotes a 

 "bursting out" or "breaking forth" but had been 

 conventionalized to some extent and was frequently 

 used as meaning "the mouth of a river", even where 

 the element of force was completely lacking. And 

 Ibi or Ipi denoting moisture. We find it in Sibi, river, 

 Tipisi, moistened Nipi or Nibi, water, and many 

 other similar words. We have also the same sound 

 in Ipinean, but there it has nothing to do with 

 moisture, as in that word it denotes payment' 



Canada. The most important of all Indian place- 

 names to us is Canada It signifies a village or settle- 

 ment. It is an Iroquois word and by them is used 

 in that sense to this day. But there is a mystery 

 about it, and it consists in its being an Iroquois 



wora. 



Their home, as far as we have any reliable evid- 

 ence was in central and western New York, while 

 all east of them dwelt tribes belonging to the Algon- 

 quin linguistic stock. It therefore seems evident that 

 the Iroquois must at some time have forced their way 

 down to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and there coming 

 into contact with the whites, have given this country 

 the name by which we know it. Their stay in the 

 east, however, must have been but brief, for the 

 nomenclature of that region bears very few traces 

 of their presence there. 



At the lime we are considering and so it is yet 

 the great majority of the Indians inhabiting what was 

 originally known as Canada was of Algonquin 

 affinity, and so it almost seems as if there were an 

 element of unfairness in naming this country Canada 

 instead of Odana, its Algonquin equivalent. 



Quebec. Quebec took its name from the Indian 

 word Kibec denoting "closed off" or more literally 

 "shut up" This alludes to the appearance of the 

 St. Lawrence, which at that point, whether ap- 

 proached from up or down river, appears to be 



closed off. owing to the position of the Island of 

 Orleans and Cape Diamond. 



Ontario. I have never been able to find any de- 

 finite proof as to the derivation of the word Ontario, 

 but have httle doubt that it was derived from an 

 Onondaga word Gontare, signifying "the Lake". 



Lakes v/ere not as common in the Iroquois ter- 

 ritory as in that of their northern neighbours, but 

 even if they had been the size of Ontario would 

 justify its being called "the Lake". 



That Ontario is an Iroquois word is almost proven 

 by the "R" in it. In a copy of "A grammar of the 

 Cree language" written by Joseph Howse, F.R.G.S., 

 I find this; "In the northern dialects (including the 

 Cree and Chippeway) the rabid R is never found." 



On the other hand Baraga who on pages 3 and 4 

 makes an almost similar statement, afterwards on 

 page 301 modifies it by a note to the effect that 

 there were some Crees who could pronounce ra-re- 

 ri-ro, and quotes the names Rimouski (the dog's 

 home) and Restigouche (the small tree) as proofs. 

 In my copy of Baraga, however, I find a note by 

 the late Mr. Lindsay Russell, whose it once was, 

 stating that the R in this case is probably a foreign 

 corruption. And my personal experience, limited 

 though it be, has taught me that while there may be 

 some Crees who can sound the letter R, a great 

 many of them certainly cannot. 



It seems an irony of fate that the Crees, known 

 to themselves as the Nehethowuk, should come down 

 to us in history bearing a name that they them- 

 selves cannot pronounce, and probably bestowed 

 upon them by their hereditary foes the Iroquois. 



But be all this as it may, one has only to glance 

 at a map of Canada and the states adjoining it on 

 the south, to realize that practically only in territory 

 once occupied by the Iroquois and their Huron 

 cousins are found Place-names in which the R 

 occurs. 



For these reasons I think it is a fair assumption 

 that Ontario is an Iroquois word and means "the 

 Lake". 



Manitoba. Baraga gives this as derived from 

 "Manitowaba" The Straight of the Spirit". No 

 doubt he is correct in this, but no one of our English- 

 speaking Indians or rivermen would ever have used 

 just these English words, few if any of them would 

 have known what the word straight in this sense 

 meant, for to them a straight was always a narrows. 



To the Indian any cause that was beyond his com- 

 prehension was "Medicine", and he attributed it to 

 the presence or action of a spirit. At the narrows 



