On some alleged specimens of Indian Onomatopoeia. 179 



guages, from its pin-like leaves. Hence too, the Algonkin name of 

 the only native animal which has a pin-like or bristly covering, — the 

 ■porcupine. [Abn. Jcanais, ' thorn,' ' spine ;' kanuia/i, a porcupine's 

 skin, lit. 'pin skin;' Cree, kaiok'wu, porcupine; Chippewa, kaagk; 

 Blackfoot, ka'i ska.] In nearly all dialects, the affix 'sA (strongly aspi- 

 rated) denotes aversion or depreciation. Fur example, in the Chip- 

 pewa, chimaun means ' a canoe ;' chimauntsJi, ' a had or worthless 

 canoe ;' kaugk, ' a porcupine,' and kaugk-bsh [gag-osh., Baraga,] ' a 

 bad porcupine.' This name is etymologically identical with '■Jcoo 

 koosh,'' a hog, — and the latter, so far from being a true specimen of 

 onomatopoeia, is seen to be built up, from its monosyllabic primitive, 

 to describe " a bad animal with a bristly (or, pin-like) skin." 



Only one other name of a quadruped appears in Dr. Wilson's list : 

 '''■ JPe-zheio or Bi-zhew, the Lynx or Wild Cat." The Indians of Mas- 

 sachusetts called the domestic Cat poopohs* and Dr. Pickeringf 

 thought that this name might have been "formed from the English 

 poor puss.^^ But Roger Williams gives pussdugh as the Narragansett 

 name of the Wild Cat, and Rasles's Abnaki Dictionary has pesouis 

 for ' Chat,' — which, again, Dr. Pickering thought might be a corrup- 

 tion of " the familiar English pws5 or jowssy." Without accepting this 

 derivation, it seems plain enough, at least, that the Xarr. pussough 

 and Abnaki pesouis are equivalents of the modern Chippewa pe shoe 

 orpe zhew, ' the Wild Cat,' and of the Menomenee ^«2/ shay ew. The 

 Chijjpewa name of the Panther is mis'si-pe zhew, ' great pezhew ' or 

 'great Cat.' It is not impossible, certainly, — but it is hardly proba- 

 ble, that a name which appears in so many forms and which has been 

 given to the domestic Cat, to the Lynx, and to the Panther, origina- 

 ted by imitation of the cry of one or another of these animals. 

 Those who maintain the universality of onomatopoeia, are entitled to 

 the benefit of the doubt. 



Of the twenty-six specimens presented, nineteen (or neai'ly three- 

 fourths) are names of hirds. Four or five of these are apparently 

 mimetic ; six or seven are possibly so ; and nearly all the rest are 

 demonstrably derivative, and independently significant. As might 

 have been anticipated, the nanus of Owls and of the Crow are among 

 those which are least doubtfully onomatopoeic. The Chippewa lo-ko'- 

 ko-o (Mass. kook kook haiis ; Narr. ko ko' ke hoin / Mohawk, o-ho-ho- 

 wah ; Onondaga, ke kd a ;) represents very nearly the call of the Cat 



* Cotton's Vocabulary, 3 Mass. Hist. Coll., ii. 156. 

 f In note to Rasles' Abnaki Dictionary, s. v. Chat. 



