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SCIENCE 



[Vol. XVllI. No. 457 



Morgan gives the name in all but the Oceirla dialect, and with 

 but slight variation. In all he makes a sound as in far. The 

 French spelling would prove biit little, but Sir William Johnson 

 wrote it '• Jadaghque," and thus it appears on Lake Erie, on the 

 boundary map of 1768. 



Mr. Marshall took notice of the various meanings ascribed to 

 the name, as " The place where a child was swept away by the 

 waves;" " the foggy place ;" "the elevated place;" "the sack 

 tied in the middle;" but preferred the one given him by "Dr. 

 Peter Wilson, an educated Seneca." This was " where the fish 

 was taken out; " agreeing with the meaning furnished Mr. Gat- 

 schet. As Mr. Marshall's paper is not accessible to all, I copy the 

 tradition, which is very simple, as given by Dr. Wilson. " A 

 party of Senecas were returning from the Ohio to Lake Erie. 

 While paddling through Chautauqua Lake, one of them caught a 

 strange fish and tossed it into his canoe. After passing the por- 

 tage into Lake Erie they found the fish still alive, and threw it in 

 the water. From that time the new species became abundant in 

 Lake Erie, where one was never known before. Hence, they 

 called the place where it was caught Jah dah-gwah, the elements 

 of which are Ga-joh, ' fish,' and Ga-dah-gwah, ' taken out.' By 

 dropping the prefixes, according to Seneca custom, the compound 

 name ' Jah-dah-gwah ' was formed." 



Mr. Gatschet simply reverses this story, taking the fish from 

 Lake Erie. On the other hand, we have another careful writer, 

 Mr. Morgan, interpreting the name as the "Place where one was 

 lost." 



From various old documents it is evident that the name was 

 applied to the lake and also to the nearest spot on Lake Erie. It 

 first appears in De Celeron's journey, but was evidently in use 

 before. A lead plate, which the Indians purloined from him, was 

 marked by mistake to be placed at the confiuence of the Ohio and 

 the Tchadakoin, July 29, 1749. In the one buried, this was cor- 

 rected to the confluence of the Ohio and Kanaaiagon, novr tbe 

 Conewango. De Celoron reached the Cliatakouin poiluge July 

 16, 1749, "and arrived at the end of the pottage, on the banks 

 of Lake Chatacoin, on the 23d." 



It is quite probable that the portage terminating at Chautauqua 

 Lake on the one hand, gave the name to the landing on Lake 

 Erie on the other, according to Indian custom. This spot is often 

 referred to about that time. Stephen Coffen, in 1753, being then 

 with a body of French, " arrived at Chadakoin on Lake Erie, 

 where they were ordered to fell timber, and prepare it for build- 

 ing a fort there." M. Morang liked the place no better than De 

 Celoron had done, " the river of Chadakoins being too shallow to 

 carry any craft with provisions, etc., to Belle Rivier." M. Mercie 

 found another place at Erie, '■ fifteen leagues to the south-west of 

 Chadakoin." Others used similar terms. On his map of 1758, 

 M. Pouchot applies the name to the Conewango, calling the stream 

 flowing from the lake the River Shatacoin. He seems singular in 

 this, as Chautauqua Creek had been thus called but a few years 

 before. 



Mr. Gatschet explains the use of the prefix T'ka, much as Mor- 

 gan does. The latter, however, invariably gives the full sound, 

 Tecar, or Teka, instead of the shortened, which is customary. In 

 first taking down names from the Onondagas I did the same, be- 

 ing anxious to have every syllable fully pronounced, but soon 

 found that this did not give the word sound. In this case that is 

 best preserved by T'kah, which I have long used. 



The discrepancy in the translation of Indian words is at first 

 surprising, but many are purely the fancies of white men, and 

 these are as persistent as any. Thus, in a familiar instance, 

 Skaneateles, which means " long lake," is pertinaciously rendered 

 "beautiful squaw." Cayuga is an instance where the Indians 

 themselves do not agree, for it was translated "at the mucky 

 land " for Mr. Morgan. David Cusick says it means "mountain 

 rising from water," while Albert Cusick translated it for me as 

 " where they drew their boats out of the water." I am inclined 

 to think this difference may be more apparent than real, all pos- 

 sibly referring merely to an incident in the Hiawatha legend. 



Indian names in New York come from very trivial things, and 

 probably always have. Honcoye, "a finger lying," is a case in 



oint. The amputated member, lying in the way, was a matter 



of comment or description, and affixed itself to the village more 

 than the place. Once the name of a town it migrated with the 

 town. The favorite village name of Ka-no-wa-Io-hale, " head on 

 a pole," was used in more than one place at the same time. 



I have noted one curious thing in Indian pronunciation, that 

 they do not always pronounce names among themselves as they 

 do to the whites, so that error is often perpetuated on the best of 

 authority. An Onondaga never pronounces the name of his na- 

 tion in conversation among the whites as he does among his own 

 people, but invariably gives a the long instead of broad sound, 

 which he always uses in his own language in this word. I do 

 not know how this commenced, but it was long ago, and may 

 have come from early attempts to conform to supposed rules 

 among us. It is a curious fact, however, and shows the need of 

 care in taking down words. 



Among the sonorous names preserved in New York, very few 

 are poetical, and where they are made such, with rare exceptions, 

 their correctness may be suspected. They are seldom unaltered, 

 letters being changed or syllables dropped. In a large proportion 

 of cases they are rendered in the Mohawk dialect west of Albany, 

 as that people was most directly in contact with the colonists. 

 Thus we frequently find Mohawk pronunciation in the territory of 

 the Onondagas and Senecas 



As in the case of Chautauqua, names are often taken from one 

 place and applied to another. Schenectady, " Beyond the pines," 

 is an instance. It belongs to Albany, but became expressive 

 when used in either way. When Corlaer bought Schenectady the 

 Indians knew it as Schonowe, ' the great plain." The name of 

 Onondaga followed the various removals of the village, and this 

 is true of most of the Seneca towns. As witli us, the same names 

 would co-exist. The Oneidas had, among their lakes, Skaniado- 

 ris; the Onondagas, Skaneateles; the Senecas, Skaneatice; all 

 meaning a long lake, but not necessarily large. The allusions to 

 hemlocks, in the same way, are quite frequent. 



One cause of confusion in the interpretation of names is the 

 similarity of sound. The name of Canastota is probably rendered 

 correctly Kanetota, "a pine tree standing alone;" but the Onon- 

 dagas know it as Kanosta, "the frame of a house," which they 

 greatly admired when the first one was built there. A facetious 

 friend has suggested a Latin derivation from cants totus, the 

 whole dog, which would do quite as well as many interpretations 

 of Indian names. Occasionally one meets with a name strongly 

 suggestive of European origin. Two of these are quite notewor- 

 thy. One is that of Tappan, a well known personal name with 

 us, but also that of an early Indian tribe, living on Tappan Bay, 

 on the Hudson River. Of this Heckwelder long ago wrote, 

 " This is from the Delaware language, and derived from Thup- 

 hane, or Tup-han-ne, ' Cold Spring.' " The other is the name 

 Seneca, which appears on Dutch maps as early as 1614. The 

 Dutch knew the Iroquois only as the Mohawks and Senecas, and 

 used the names by which the Algonquin tribes called them. Both 

 divisions had strong cannibal tastes, and for this were held in ab- 

 horrence by other nations. The Mohawks were known in New 

 England as " men-eaters," and the name of the Senecas seems to 

 have had much the same meaning elsewhere. Of course it is no 

 more an Iroquois word than Maqua or Mohawk. It may come 

 from the radical word sinni, " eat," and probably does. 



Niagara has no allusion to the falls, but is simply a "neck," 

 suggested by its connecting two great lakes. It takes many 

 forms, and the Neutrals called it On-gui-a-ah-ra in 1640, having 

 a village there of the same name. As the name of Erie means 

 a cat, I had some doubt, for a time, whether Cusick's trans- 

 lation of another name of Lake Erie, Kau-ha-gwa-rah-ka, "a 

 cap," might not be a misprint, but it is correct. There were 

 several names, of course, for that lake. The Onondagas know 

 Lake Ontario as the lake at Oswego, but in the middle of the last 

 century they called Lake Erie Sa-hi-qua-ge, which the English 

 rendered Swee-ge. The carrying place at Niagara was then 

 known as Och-swee-ge. Oswego river first appears by this name 

 in 1670, with French spelling, and where the present Seneca River 

 leaves Cayuga lake. Father Raffeix said, "The river Choueguen, 

 which rises in this lake, soon branches into several canals." The 

 French sometimes prefixed the letter O, but their pronunciation 



