870 



MINNEPATA MISHIKHWUTMETUNNE 



[b. a. E. 



underlying motive in the poet's mind in 

 the creation of his Minnehaha: 



Bring not to my lodge a stranger 

 From the land of the Dacotahs! 

 Very fierce are the Dacotahs, 

 Often is there war between us, 

 There are feuds yet unforgotten. 

 Wounds that ache and still may open! 



For that reason, if no other, 

 Would I wed the fair Daeotah, 

 That our tribes might be united, 

 That old feuds might be forgotten. 

 And old wounds be healed forever! 



The name Minnehaha is first met with 

 in Mrs Eastman's book. In the intro- 

 duction of that work she makes the state- 

 ment that between Ft Snelling and the 

 Falls of Ht Anthony "are the Little Falls 

 40 ft. in height on a stream that empties 

 into the Mississippi. The Indians call 

 themMinnehaha,or ' Laughing Waters. ' " 

 This is plainly the source of the heroine's 

 name. The word Minnehaha is taken 

 from the Teton dialect of the Dakota 

 language. It is a compound, the first 

 part of which is mini and means water. 

 Mini occupies initial place in composition, 

 as, minito blue water, min'mipa black water, 

 miniyayu water-cask. The rendering of 

 Minnehaha as 'Laughing Water' is ex- 

 plained as follows: The verb to laugh is 

 iha (h=German ch); to laugh at, Utal'ia; 

 and the noun laughter is Kalia. Hence, 

 Minnehaha is literally ' water laughter.' 

 The more reasonable definition of Minne- 

 haha is to be sought from such a source 

 as that given in the Dakota-English Dic- 

 tionary of Stephen Return Riggs, accord- 

 ing to whom liaha as a noun in compounds 

 denotes 'cascade,' 'cataract'; hence ??imi- 

 Ilalia would signify ' waterfall. ' ( w. .t. ) 



Minnepata ('falling water'). A divi- 

 sion of the Hidatsa. 



Minipata. — Matthews, inf'n, 18X5. Min-ne-pa'-ta.— 

 Morgan, Anc. Soc, 159, 1877. Water. — Ibid. 



Minnetarees of Knife River. An uni- 

 dentified Hidatsa division, mentioned by 

 Lewis and Clark (Exped., i, 330, 1814). 

 Possibly theAmahami. 



Mipshuntik {MV-p'cim-tik). A former 

 Yaquina village on the N. side of Yaquina 

 r., on the site of Toledo, Benton co., 

 Oreg. — Dorsey in Jour. Am. Folk-lore, 

 III, 229, 1890. 



Miqkano (' mud-turtle') . A subphratry 

 or gens of the Menominee. — Hoffman in 

 14th Rep. B. A. E., pt. i, 42, 1896. 



Miramichi. A former Micmac village 

 on the right bank of Miramichi r. , New 

 Brunswick, where it flows into the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence. The French had 

 a mission there in the 17th century, and 

 in 1760 there was a Micmac village or 

 band of that name. (.i. m.) 



Merimichi.— Frve '1760) in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 

 Ists., X, 115, 1809. Merrimichi.— Mass. Hist. Soc. 

 Coll., 1st s., Ill, 100, 1794 Miramichi.— Beauhar- 

 nois (1745) in N. Y. Doc. Col. Hist., x, 6, 1868. 



Mirimichy.— Stiles (1761) in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 

 1st s., X, 116. 1.S09. Mizamichis. — Shea, Miss. Val., 

 86, 1852 (misprint). 



Miscanaka. The site of San Buenaven- 

 tura mission, Cal. (Taylor in Cal. Farmer, 

 July 24, 1863). Said by Indians in 1884 

 to be the name of a former Chumahsan 

 village at the site of the present school- 

 house in that town. (n. w. H.) 

 Miscanaka. — 'i'aylor, op. cit. Mitc-ka'-na-kau. — 

 Henshaw, Bueliaventura MS. vocab., B. A. E., 

 1884 {tc=cli). 



Miseekwigweelis. A division of the 

 Skagit tribe, now on Swinomish res., 

 Wash. They participated with other 

 tribes in the treaty of Pt Elliott, Wash. , 

 Jan. 22, 1855, by which they ceded lands 

 to the United States and agreed to settle 

 on a reservation. 



Bes-he-kwe-guelts.— Mallet in Ind. Aff. Rep., 198, 

 1877. Mee-see-qua-guilch.— U. S. Ind. Treat. (1855), 

 378, 1873. Miseekwigweelis. — Gibbs in Cont. N. A. 

 Ethnol.,1, 180, 1877. Mis-kai-whu.— Gibbs in Pac. 

 R. R. Rep., I, 436, 1855. 



Misesopano. A Chumashan village w. 

 of Pueblo de las Canoas (San Buenaven- 

 tura ), Ventura co., Cal., in 1542; placed by 

 Taylor on the Rafael Gonzales farm-. 

 Misesopano. — Cabrillo (1542) in Smith, Colec. Doe. 

 Fla., 181, 1857. Mississipone.— Taylor in Cal. 

 Farmer, Apr. 17, 1863. Pona.— Ibid. 



Mishawum (probably from mishawu- 

 mut, 'a great spring' — S. D. in Mass. 

 Hist. Soc. Coll., 2d s., x, 174, 1823; 

 Jones (Ind. Bui., 1867) translates it 'large 

 peninsula'). A Massachuset village for- 

 merly at Charlestown, near Boston, Mass. 

 It was commonly known as Sagamore 

 John's town, from the name of a resident 

 chief. The English settled thefe in 

 1628. (j. M.) 



Misham.— Drake, Ind. Chron., 155, 1836. Misha- 

 wum. — Pemberton in Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll. Ists., 

 Ill, 241, 1794. Sagamore John's Town. — Early Eng- 

 lish writers. 



Mishcup. One of the New England 

 names of the porgy {Spams argyroj)s). 

 Roger Williams (1643) gives ^nishcup- 

 pcmog, the plural form, as the word for 

 bream in the Narraganset dialect of Algon- 

 quian. Mishcup, the singular, is derived 

 from mishe, 'great', and kuppi, 'close 

 together,' referring to the scales of the 

 fish. From mischcuppaHiori have been 

 derived scuppaug and sciq); also porgy 

 OT paugee. (a. f. c.) 



MisMkhwutmetunne ( ' people who dwell 

 on the stream called Mishi' ). An Atha- 

 pascan tribe formerly occupying villages 

 on upper Coquille r., Oreg. In 1861 they 

 numbered 55 men, 75 women, and 95 

 children (Ind. Aff. Rep., 162, 1861). In 

 1884 the survivors were on Siletz res. 

 Dorsey (Jour. Am. Folk-lore, in, 232, 

 1890) in that year obtained the following 

 list of their villages ( which he calls gentes) 

 as they formerly existed on Coquille 

 r. from the Kusan country to the head of 

 the stream, although not necessarily at 

 one period: Chockrelatan, Chuntshataa- 



