AiBORIGiNAL PLACE NAMES OF NEW YORK 139 



Falls. An early name for West Canada creek, Guyahora is the 

 same. 



Ni-ha-run-ta-quo-a, great tree, the council name of the Oneidas, 

 was applied to their town in 1743. Otherwise this is not a place 

 name here. Hiawatha is said to have found a party of Oneidas 

 resting by a great tree which they had cut down. David Cusick's 

 story has been mentioned, but he gave no reason for the name. 



Nun-da-da'-sis, around the hill, is Morgan's name for Utica in 

 allusion to the way the road swept around the hill east of the city. 

 Another form of this word was U-nun-da-da'-ges, and Morgan gave 

 also the dialectal variations, which are mostly in the prefixes. 



On-ei-da is the present form of a word variously spelled, but 

 meaning standing stone. Oneiyuta is one form. The French wrote 

 itOnneiout, the Moravians Anajot. This people first lived in the 

 central part of Madison county, having their name from a large 

 upright stone at their early town a little south of Perryville. This 

 was perpetuated by the great boulder at Nichols pond, where they 

 lived in 161 5. A stone was selected for their later villages as the 

 national emblem. There is much variety in spelling. The Jesuits 

 mentioned them in 1635 as the Oniochrhonons, and 10 years later 

 spoke of their town as Ononjote which would refer to the hills 

 rather than a stone. In 1654 they dropped the first syllable of 

 this, bringing the word nearer its present form. On their map of 

 1665 it is Onneiout. 



Sir William Johnson spoke of the meaning of the name in 

 1771 : "They have in use [as] Symbols, a Tree, by which they 

 w'^ Express Stability. But their true Symbols is a Stone called 

 Onoya, and they called themselves Onoyuts a particular Insf^^ of 

 wch I can give from an Expedt* I went on to Lake St Sacrament in 

 1746, when to show the Enemy the strength of our Ind" Alliances 

 I desired Each Nation to affix their Symbols to a Tree [to alarm] 

 the French ; the Oneydas put up a stone wch they painted Red." 



Professor Dwight said : " There is a stone too large to be 

 carried by a man of ordinary strength, at some distance eastward 

 from the Oneida village, which some of these people regard with 

 reverence. . . . They say that it has slowly followed their 

 nation in its various removals." It was then in Oneida county 

 and a young man told him he had several times removed it short 



