ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK 129 



commence with S, as in Saponanican, another name for this place. 



Man-hat-tan, the island, is equivalent to the Delaware word 

 Manatey. Zeisberger wrote it Minatey and Menatey. Trumbull 

 has Munnohhanit and Menohhannet, on an island, in the Natick 

 dialect; but says elsewhere that Manataanung or Manatees is the 

 name of New York, ung being a locative affix. Tooker now derives 

 the name from manah, island, and atin, hill, thus making it hilly 

 island. Heckewelder could not find that there ever was a distinct 

 nation called Manhattans, and concluded that the island was called 

 Man-a-hat-ta-ni by the Delawares, and was inhabited by them. 

 This they now claim. De Laet, however, in 1625 said that the 

 Manatthans were a wicked nation and deadly enemies of the San- 

 kikani, living opposite them on the west shore of the river. As the 

 word simply refers to those dwelling on an island, several intelli- 

 gent writers have given the same name to those who lived on 

 Staten Island, and who had the same title to it. Schoolcraft alone 

 thought the word meant people of the whirlpool. 



Under another similar name, Man-a-hat-ta-nink, place of general 

 intoxication. Heckewelder and others have related a story of this, 

 not well proved, but he also wrote it Manahachtanienk, with the 

 same meaning. Then he gave it as Manahachtanicuk (probably the 

 same), cluster of islands with channels everywhere. Some Dela- 

 wares recently referred it to the use of a kind of arrowwood found 

 there. They said: 



Our traditions affirm that at the period of the discovery of 

 America our nation resided on the island of New York. We called 

 that island Manahatouh, the place where timber is procured for 

 hows and arroivs. The word is compounded of N'manhumin, / 

 gather, and tanning, at the place. At the lower end of the island 

 was a grove of hickory trees of peculiar strength and toughness. 

 Our fathers held this timber in high esteem, as material for con- 

 structing bows, war clubs, etc. 



Washington Irving's humorous definitions may not be as well 

 known as they once were. In his quaint history of New York he 

 said: 



The name most current at the present day, and which is likewise 

 countenanced by the great historian Van der Donck, is Manhattan; 

 which is said to have originated in a custom among the squaws, in 

 the early settlement, of wearing men's hats, as is still done among 



