ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK 4I 



seems south of the line, and may be meant for Conewango. This 

 would be defined differently. 



Kau-quat'-kay, principal Erie fort according to D. Cusick, 



Ke-on-to-na or Ca-yon-to-na, an Indian village of 1789, was 

 on the west branch of Conewango river. From this comes Kian- 

 tone. 



Ko-sha-nu-a-de-a-go, a stream flowing south across the Penn- 

 sylvania, seems the Kasanotiayogo of the French writers. 



Oregon postoffice. This introduced name is used elsewhere in 

 New York, and the meaning has been much discussed. Jonathan 

 Carver heard of such a river in 1766, but it does not belong to the 

 Oregon dialects, though there is an Okanagan river in that state. 

 The name may be Algonquin, with the meaning of great zvuter, 

 but is more probably a Dakota word. Carver mentioned it as a 

 great river flowing into the Pacific, and called it " Oregon, or the 

 river of the West." Bryant first used it after Carver, in his poem 

 of Thanatopsis, written in 1817: ''Lose thyself in the continuous 

 woods where rolls the Oregon." Some have derived it from Ori- 

 ganum, an herb, but this is an error. Nor does it come from 

 the Spanish word, huracan, a wind, originally from the Mexican 

 and familiar to us as a hurricane- A popular interpretation has 

 been from the Spanish word ore j on, a pulling of the ear, or lop 

 ears, but Carver undoubtedly had it from the Indians, and this 

 source should be accepted. This is partly Bancroft's decision in 

 the full discussion in his Pacific States, and his words may be 

 quoted : 



Therefore the summing of the evidence would read Oregon, in- 

 vented by Carver, made famous by Bryant, and fastened upon the 

 Columbia river territory, first by Kelley, through his memorials to 

 Congress and numerous published writings, begun as early as 1817, 

 and secondly, by other English and American authors, who adopted 

 it from the three sources here given. 



Wan'-go is shortened from Conewango. 



CHEMUNG COUNTY * 



Mount Ach-sin'-ing, standing stones, was south of the Chemung 

 and opposite Sing Sing creek. It is a Delaware name. 



Ach-sin-nes'-sink, Assinissink, Asinsan or Atsinsink, place of 

 small stones, was a Monsey or Delaware village on the east side of 



