96 HISTORY OF COHASSET. 



for their own home, spelled as they pronounced it to Smith's 

 expert ear. 



The meaning of it is a fair object of inquiry, for the 

 Indian names of places are almost invariably descriptive 

 words. 



Parson Flint, in his "Century Discourses," said that 

 " Conohasset was an Indian name, signifying a fishing 

 promontory ; " but this meaning is undoubtedly a mistake.* 

 No part of the word means fish, and there is nothing in it 

 to signify a promontory. The Indian word for fish is 

 nainis or nahvios, and a "place of fish" is neviaskct or 

 some allied form of the word. By carefully comparing 

 ours with several other Indian words that are similar, the 

 first part of the word, or Q?iona, is proved to mean " long." 

 It is to be seen in the old spelling of Connecticut River, 

 namely, Quonnaticut, meaning a long tidal river. In 

 Pennsylvania the following Indian names for rivers show 

 the same root, meaning "long": Conodoguinet = long 

 way nothing but bends. Conequenessing := long way 

 straight. The same root with a disguised spelling is in 

 the familiar Kennebec River of Maine, meaning " long 

 river." Koine or cojine or cono or quona are the differ- 

 ent spellings of substantially the same Indian sounds. 



The second root discernible in our name is Jiassi, which 

 undoubtedly means "rock" or "rocky." Six different 

 dialects of the Algonquin language have a word similar 

 to this, meaning rock or stone : Jmssim, assene, ossin^ assin, 

 akhsin, asenneJi. The nearest to ours may be the so- 

 called " Old Algonquin " form of assin. 



The t ending of our name is a familiar sound at the end 

 of many Indian names for localities. The terminal at, et, 

 it, ot, nt, etc., was indicative of place or the name of a 

 locality. 



* Deane's History of Scituate, written ten years later, continues this error, quoting 

 from Flint (p. 4) ; also Solomon Lincoln's History of Hingham, 1627, only si.x 

 years after Parson Flint's Discourses, retails the same blunder (p. 32). Parson 

 Flint may have taken some traditional meaning without investigating it. 



J 



