STATE NAMES — HARRINGTON 381 



Massachusetts. — The Massachusetts tribe of Indians, which dom- 

 inated the region of Massachusetts Bay in pre-Cohimbian times, 

 belonged to the Algonquian stock and spoke a northern dialect of 

 Narraganset. According to the map of Capt. John Smith, the Mas- 

 sachusetts Indians were named from Great Blue Hill, 2 miles south 

 of Milton, Mass., on the top of which there is now an observatory. 

 The hill can be seen from Boston Harbor. The originating form was 

 perhaps mes-atsu-s-et, "large hill place." 



We are now able to explain why Josiah Cotton, who took down a 

 Massachusetts vocabulary in 1702, states in that vocabulary that 

 INIassachusetts means arrowhead hill. The Massachusetts term for 

 flint sounded similar to the term for large. Massachusetts Hill is a 

 hillock near the mouth of Sachem's Creek in Quincy, Mass. Since 

 this hillock is not large, its name may easily contain the term for 

 flint. But the name of the tribe was taken from Great Blue Hill. 



The colony and later State of Massachusetts received its name by 

 the extension of this term. 



Michigan, — The name Michigan first appears in the writings of 

 Alouet, 1672, and evidently applied to a large clearing on the west side 

 of what is now known as Michigan lower peninsula. Frederic Baraga 

 ("A Dictionary of the Otchipwe (Chippewa) Language," Cincinnati, 

 1853) gives "Clearing, majiigan." Michigan was later erroneously 

 thought to go back to Chippewa micigami, which is one way of saying 

 "large water," although a more natural way of talking in Chippewa 

 would be to say kitcigami or kitcizagiigan, -zagiigan meaning "lake." 

 Evidently the name Michigan originally referred to the clearing, and 

 later the French and English-speaking whites extended it to refer to 

 Lake Michigan. Michigan was made a Territory in 1805, a State in 

 1837. 



Minnefiota. — The prominent river in what is now the southern part 

 of the State of Minnesota, a western affluent of the Mississippi River, is 

 now called the Minnesota River, but was earlier called St. Peter's 

 River (French, riviere de Saint Pierre). Stephen Return Riggs ("A 

 Dakota-English Dictionary," Contributions to North American Eth- 

 nology, vol. 7, 1890) shows that the name Minnesota in the originating 

 Dakota Sioux form Mnishota, signifies "milky" or "clouded water." 

 There are two other possible derivations, mnihhota, "gray water," and 

 mnisota, "used up or dwindled water." The old Indians of Riggs' 

 time believed that mnishota was the original form. The name of the 

 river was later extended to the Territory and State. 



Jonathan Carver's "Travels through the Interior Parts of North 

 America" (London, 1778) contains the earliest occurrence of the word 

 Minnesota, spelled Menesoter. Gen. Sibley, who took an active part 

 in the creation of Minnesota Territory in 1849, is responsible for the 

 spelling Minnesota. Minnesota State was created in 1858. 



