ABORIGINAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK . 1 35 



this Lake Ontario had its Seneca name. In his comparative hst he 

 gave this form to the Onondagas also, O-ne-a'-ga to the Cayugas, 

 O-ne-a'-cars to the Tuscaroras, O-ne-a'-gale to the Oneidas, and 

 O-ne-a-ga'.-ra to the Mohawks, whose pronunciation the EngHsh 

 naturally followed. This comparison well illustrates the difference 

 in dialects, but Mr Marshall differed from it, saying that the Mo- 

 hawk pronunciation is Nyah'-ga-ralV, while the Senecas called it 

 A'yah'-gaah^ restricting this name to Lake Ontario and the river be- 

 low the falls. Dr E. B. O'Callaghan enumerated 39 ways of spell- 

 ing the word and there may be more. The river has been called 

 Oneaka at its mouth and D. Cusick gave it as Onyakarra. Primar- 

 ily the name belonged to the Neutral nation, a people living between 

 the Hurons and Iroquois, akin to and at peace with both. They 

 called themselves Akouanke, but the Hurons styled them Attiwan- 

 daronk, a people ivith a speech a little different from their own. 

 Yates and Moulton cite a letter from Col. Timothy Pickering, who 

 conducted several treaties with the Indians. It was written in 1824, 

 and he said of this name : 



I have been sometimes asked what was the Indian pronunciation 

 of Niagara. By the eastern tribes it was Ne-au-gaii-razv, or rather 

 Ne-og-au-roh. The second syllable was short, with the accent upon 

 it. The sound of the last syllable was indefinite, much as we pro- 

 nounce the last syllable of the word America. I account for the 

 sound of i as e in Niagara, and the broad sound of a to its having 

 been written by the Low Dutch of Albany, and the French in 

 Canada. In writing the Indian names in my treaty of 1794, I took 

 some pains to get their Indian sounds, and to express them by such 

 a combination of letters as would have been given them had the 

 names been English. Koii-on-ddi-giia for instance, the place where 

 the treaty was held; the accent being on the syllable dai. The 

 Senecas called the falls or river not Ne-og-au-roh, but Ne-an-gaiv, 

 the' second syllable aiih gutterally, with the accent upon it, and the 

 last syllable long. 



Ni-ga'-we-nah'-a-ah, suiall island, is Tonawanda island. 



O-ge-a'-wa-te-ka'-e, place of the huttcrnut, is Morgan's name for 

 Royalton Center. 



On-di-a-ra appears at the mouth of Niagara river on the Jesuit 

 map of 1665, and some have confused this with Ontario, which 

 appears on the same map as " Lac Ontario, ou des Irocjuois," 



