178 Oti some alleged specimens of Indian Onomatopma. 



pose of estimating the value of the whole collection, as evidence of 

 the predominance of the onomatopoeic element in the vocabulary of 

 the North American languages. 



These languages, it must be premised, have — even in their principal 

 dialects — been so superficially studied and are so imperfectly known, 

 that it is not always possible to trace derivatives to jjiimitives, even 

 when the fact of derivation is obvious,^ — or to prove the negative 

 against every assumed onomatopoeia, by exhibiting the true etymol- 

 ogy. Of some of the names under consideration, I can say no more 

 than that their onomatopoeic origin is wot, prima facie, apparent, and 

 that they are quite as likely to be proved holophrastic or descriptive, 

 as mimetic. Of others, I can more positively affirm that they have 

 not the least claim to inclusion with specimens of onomatopoeia. 



Take first, the name '^ koo-Jcoosh, the sow." This is specially no- 

 ticed by Dr. Wilson (p. 62) as " purely onomatopoeic." It is, in fact, 

 one of a considerable group of derivatives from a well-defined Algon- 

 kin root. When the hog was introduced by European colonists, the 

 Algonkin tribes of the Atlantic coast adopted its English name, — 

 modified by the characteristic affixes of the Indian animate-nouns. 

 In Eliot's translation of the Bible in the language of Massachusetts, 

 ' swine ' is rendered by pigs for the singular, p>W^'^9 ^^r the plural. 

 Roger Williams, in the Narragansett, wrote, sing, hogs, and ^:>/^sy 

 pi. h6gs-uck, pigs-uck ; Rasles, for the Abnaki, pikess, pi. p'tks-ak. 

 Sometimes, howevei-, the Indians transferred to this (as to other newly 

 introduced species) the name of some animal previously known, 

 which the new-comer was thought most nearly to resemble, or they 

 compounded a new name which denoted such a resemblance. The 

 Narragansetts occasionally called swine by the name of the Wood- 

 chuck or Ground Hog, Ockqutchaun, — which R. Williams describes 

 as " about the bigness of a pig and rooting like apigP {Indian Key, 

 ch. xvii.) This name signifies ' burrower ' or ' digger.' Similarly, 

 the Shyennes — an off-shoot of the Algonkin stock — call the pig, the 

 ' sharp-nosed dog ' (e Mi si ^i o tum), and the domestic cat ' the short- 

 nosed dog ' {ka esio turn). 



Koo-koosh is a Chippewa form of a descriptive name which was 

 perhaps first used by the Delawares or Nanticokes. It is found (as 

 kwskiis) in the vocabulary of New Sweden compiled by Canipanius 

 before 1606. The root, ko or koo, has its place in nearly all Algon- 

 kin languages. It signifies ' sharp-pointed.' Hence, in the Massa- 

 chusetts as written by Eliot, ko-tis, ' a thorn, or briar ;' ko-uhquodt, 

 'an arrow' \lit. 'sharp-tipped,' or 'sharp at the end,'J and kdwa 

 (Narr. c6 waw ; Del. cu we), ' a pine tree,' named, as in other Ian- 



