THE ODAHWAH INDIAN LANGUAGE. 485 



people in general, and I hope to be able to sbow how a wrong 

 spelling may alter a word completely from its original form, and how 

 an incorrect proper name may be repeated and taken as an historical 

 truth after a considerable space of time, especially when the language 

 in which the error originally occurred is not properly understood. By 

 way of beginning, I beg to state that there is a place on the " Ottawa" 

 river called by the Indian, Makdahwaun, while our white friends 

 persist in pronouncing the name, Matawan. Mississippi is the Indian 

 name of a large river in America. An Indian of my tribe would not 

 have the slightest idea of the original form of this word, although the 

 reader has seen a part of it in the beginning of this article. Our way 

 of writing this name is, Mashizebe ; it is compounded of Missi, which 

 in composition words corresponds to Michah, and signifies very great, 

 enormous. The rest of the name speaks for itself, sebe, a river. 



I shall close this paper by citing another example, and in doing so^ 

 will have to criticise the " Canadian Journal" itself. In a paper "read 

 before the Canadian Institute on Eebruary 14, 1857," the following 

 passages occur, — speaking of Champlain's voyages, — "He ascended 

 the Ottawa beyond the limit of his first journey, till he branched off 

 into the chain of lakes, which led him to the Lake of the Epicerini, or 

 Nebicerini, as later writers call them, an Algonquin Tribe, who were 

 long celebrated for their power as sorcerers, and whose name we still 

 preserve in that of Lake NipissingT From the above it would appear 

 that "Nipissing" is derived from "Nebicerini" j with all due defer- 

 ence to the learned author, I submit that the very reverse is the 

 case, and that "Nebicerini" is derived from "Nipissing" as much 

 as the name of " Torontonians " is taken from "Toronto." In the 

 first place the spelling in both cases is wrong ; Nipissing should be 

 written with b not p, thus Nibissing, from the Odahwah word Nibis, a 

 small lake. That lake is called Nibissing by way of distinction, being 

 about the largest of the lesser lakes in these parts ; in the same way 

 Mississippi is applied to the largest river to distinguish it from others. 

 It follows then that the correct form of Nebicerini is Nibissiwinine. 

 The term we apply to any one who resides at Nipissing and the coun- 

 try round about is " Nibissing-dahshi-ahniiie" i. e., a man belonging 

 to Nibissing ; and Nibissi-ahnine, and Nibissinine, plural, Nibissinine- 

 wug, inhabitants at Nibissing, which I presume " Nebicerini " was 

 meant to represent. The termination ng denotes generally in, at, so 

 that Nibissing signifies at the little lake. 



