214 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



Sassafras menagwdkomis. Stove 2^iM7a6iA,isJA'o>i 



(scented tree). Sun-fish okwatashi. 



Spruce kowdndak. Trolling-line odddjigdkon. 



Sticks (for beating rice).. pawdgmatak. Water-lily okltahuk. 



The Mississagua vocabulary appears to contain but few non-Algon- 

 kin words. Owistoiia (blacksmith) appears to be an Iroquois loan- 

 word ; ndpane (flour) is but the French la farine Indianised ; bojou 

 (good day) the oi'dinary salutation, is the French bo7i jour. At 

 Scugog, however, very many English words such as knife, fork, table, 

 buttons, sjioon, etc., are used by the Indians in ordinaiy conversation, 

 and they have forgotten many of their own words formerly in use. 

 One Indian said they had no word for " tree," and several of them 

 had hard work in recollecting the words asked li-om them. In 

 response to enquiries as to the existence of a " children's language," 

 the writer succeeded in discovering only two words (used by the 

 children) which differed from the ordinary speech, viz. : tehteh (father) 

 and dodon (mother). The words, as a rule, are strongly accented 

 especially when a monosyllabic, and there is sometimes a peculiar 



drawl, as e.g. in the word for porcupine ka Ji . . . . k\ The 



short a and are not very distinct, and both tend to become the u of 

 but ; d and t are indistinct, the sound really made being a medial 

 between these, the same holding of jy and 6, and g and k. A peculiar 

 sound is that of the pronominal prefix w' as in nHeh (my heart). The 

 vocabulary contains a fair proportion of monosyllables and dis- 

 syllables, the former being radical woi'ds (in most cases) the meaning 

 and etymology not being apparent ; this holds also of many dissyl- 

 lables. Such are : — mukwa (bear), amik (beaver), miikuk (box), 

 ondek (crow), odjig (fisher), dki (earth, etc.), rain (blueberry), n^os 

 (my father), n'teh (my heart), nin (I), mang^k (loon), moohs (moose). 

 Like other Indian language the Mississagua contains many of those 

 desci'iptive names which are of interest to the student of Onomato- 

 logy. Such are : — Debikids (moon = night sun), muskegamin (cran- 

 berry — marsh-fruit), okadak (sarsaparilla = leg-root), menagwakomis 

 (sassafras - scented tree), maiiistanis (sheep = hide not durable), shishi- 

 banwing (shot = duck-stones), om'Akaki (frog = devoid of hair, or fur), 

 pewdbik (iron = it crumbles off), wabimotchichagwun (looking-glass = 

 where they see ghosts), otagwanibisan [rainbow = he {i.e., the Manitou) 

 covers the rain with a mantle], etc. But few words appear to be of 



