252 
[AUG 17. 1007. 

dian French should call this animal le diable des 
bois. 
SKUNK.—The 
nivorous 
name of this well known car- 
first appeared frequently in 
English in the last quarter of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. As early as the middle of the seventeenth 
century Josselyn made use of the term squnck, 
which the linguist Trumbull connects with the 
Abnaki word segangu. The word evidently came 
into English from some one of the New England 
Algonquin dialects. The Cree word is sikak and 
the Chippewa, shikag, from which of course 
comes the place name Chicago. The word is 
commonly used also to denote patching of black 
and white, as in the term skunk black-bird for 
bobolink ; f 
mammal 
skunk-head for one of the scoter 
ducks, and also with a reference to the odor, as. 
skunk cabbage. 
Wapitt.—aA better name for the round horned 
elk than that commonly employed is coming to be 
more and It is probably derived 
from the word wapitin from the Cree language, 
which means it is whitish, referring of course 
to the pale color of the elk, perhaps, as Dr. Cham- 
berlin suggests, in contrast with the dark color 
of the moose. 
more used. 
Moose is a word which has come to us with- 
out change from several Algonquin languages, 
the word in the Virginian, Massachusetts and 
Narragansett languages being moos. The Dela- 
ware is mos and the Cree monswa. The mean- 
ing of all these words is “he strips or eats off,” 
the reference being of course to the animal’s 
mode of feeding on young twigs and bark. As 
an adjective the word is used in many connec- 
moosebird (Canada jay), 
moosewood, mooseyard. 
tions, as moosefly, 
MusguasH, a northern name fot the musk- 
rat (Fiber zibethecus), is another word from the 
Algonquin tongues, the Abnaki being muskwissu 
and the Ojibway miskwasi, meaning “it is red,” 
and referring to the animal’s color. 
OPpossuM is another word that has a number 
of different spellings and the word has passed 
into the language with half a dozen meanings, 
and as a substantive has been applied to a num- 
ber of different animals. As an adjective or sub- 
stantive opossum also means false. deceptive or 
one who is false, one who deceives or misleads. 
As a verb it is used in the sense of to deceive. 
to pretend, to feign, and we hear of playing 
"possum. Everyone knows this rat-tailed grayish 
or whitish animal and everyone has heard of 
its habit of pretending death in order to escape 
from its enemies. The word opossum is derived 
from an Algonquin term meaning “white beast.” 
Raccoon, more commonly abbreviated to ’coon, 
has a variety of spellings and comes from an 
Indian word which means “he scratches with his 
hands,” the term being.arakiin, the reference evi- 
dently being to the marks made on the bark of 
trees by the claws of the ’coon when climbing 
them. Coon skins sewn together were used as 
robes by the Indians of early times, and when 
the prisoner John Smith was brought before 
Powhattan in 1608 the “Emperor” wore a robe 
of coon skins. 
Mr. Gerard quotes the Abbé Cuoq as stating 
that the Nippissing Indians “humorously say of 
a man who has had a misunderstanding with his 
squaw and bears the mark of her finger nails 
on his face, ‘she has» made a raccoon tree of 
him.’ ” 
The name has passed to South America, where 
it is applied to the coati-mondi. .In this country 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
‘coon has become a humorous name for a negro, 
and more than sixty years ago was applied to 
a political party which had the raccoon as its 
emblem. There are raccoon berries, raccoon 
dogs, raccoon grapes, raccoon oysters and even 
a raccoon perch. 
As with the opossum, a ’coon is thought to 
be cunning and deceitful. We say as “cunning 
as a ’coon,’ or a very shrewd person may be 
called an ‘‘old ’coon.”’ 
CHIPMUNK.—This little animal is common to 
most of temperate America. One of the most 
familiar references to it in American literature 
is in Longfellow’s Hiawatha, where it is spoken 
of as “tail in air’—adjidaumo, an attempt to re- 
produce the Chippewa word for the common red 
squirrel which is atchitamon. It has often been 
said that the name of this little squirrel comes 
from its cry, because its chattering sounds like 
the syllable “chip” often repeated, but as a mat- 
ter of fact chipmunk comes from the Chippewa 
word just given, having been written as chit- 
munk by Mrs. Trail in a book published in 1834. 
The Chippewa word signifying “head first” evi- 
dently refers to the squirrel’s manner of descend- 
ing a tree trunk head downward, 
TERRAPIN.—This is a common southern term 
for turtle or tortoise, but as used in the north 
and in-cities the word: is applied chiefly to the 
salt water turtle known as diamond back, so 
highly esteemed for the table, and now becom- 
ing so scarce that several sorts of small fresh 
water tortoises are substituted for it in the mar- 
kets. The name is derived from an Algonquin 
term turupeu. Mr. Gerard suggests that the 
“ 9 
en,’ with which the common word ends and 
which is not found in the Indian word, is an 
English diminutive, suggested by such forms as 
chicken, kitten, maiden, etc., and that it was 
applied to the ‘small species to distinguish it 
from the larger snapping turtle. 
MASKINONGE, written also mashinonge, masca- 
longe, muskelunge, muskellunge, lunge and 
longe, is familiar to all anglers. In the first form 
it is Chippewa or Nipissing, and according to the 
best authorites means mash, big and kinonge, 
fish. By a similarity of sound it has been incor- 
rectly given as derived from the French words 
masque allongé, long face. 
, SQUETEAGUE.—A common name for the weak- : 
fish used in parts of New England and New 
York. There are many different forms of it, such 
as squiteeg, squettee, scuteeg, squit. Mr. Gerard 
has said: “Its name probably stands for mskwi- 
teague, ‘stained with red,’ referring to the bright 
salmon colored tint of the fishes chin.” 
Tautoc.—This is a common. term for the 
blackfish along the New England sea coast. It is 
also written tautaug. The name of the fish in the 
Algonquian dialect of Rhode Island is taut or 
tautau, while Roger Williams gives in his Narra- 
gansett vocabulary (1643) tautauog, with the de- 
finition sheep’s heads. The “og” is the plural form. 
Scup and Porcy;-a fish well known on the 
north Atlantic coast, especially New England. 
Its technical name is Sparus argyrops. Its 
older and fuller name is scuppaug, whence also 
the common New York name porgy. The term 
scuppaug comes from the Narragansett word 
mishcupauog, which is the plural of the word 
mishcup, meaning “large scale.” 
Plants and Foods. 
Tosacco,—An important contribution of the 
new world to the old, and almost universally em- 
ployed among the Indians in sacred ceremonies 
and as incense. The word is believed to be of 
Guarani origin. The use of tobacco was common 
over much of North America, and tobacco and 
smoking had everywhere a sacred character, The 
smoke was blown toward sacred objects and is 
still offered by Indians in smoking to the sky, the 
ground and the four directions. Many tribes of 
the south and others on the Missouri River cul- 
tivated tobacco, and even the Blackfeet when they 
lived on the Red ‘Deer River in Canada- raised 
tobacco, their only crop. In most cases tobacco 
was not smoked alone, but was diluted with the 
leaves of the sumach, and what is commonly 
called red willow, which is actually a species of 
cornel. On the plains a little buffalo grease was 
often added tothe smoking mixture, and to 
facilitate the lighting a pinch of dry powdered 
buffalo chip was often put on top of the tobacco. 
Even up to recent times with older members 
of different tribes in the west smoking has been 
so far a religious practice that some men would 
not smoke if women were present, and some 
would smoke only when shut up in their own 
lodge, the door being closed, the public being ex- 
cluded by a stick placed across the door. ; 
SQuasH.—Squashes and pumpkins were com- 
monly cultivated by all the agricultural Indians 
of North America, and were eaten green, or were 
dried for winter use. An early form of the term 
from which our common word derived is given 
by Roger Williams as asku'tasquash. Other au- 
thorities speak of them, as squontersquashes, or 
as isquontersquashes and the fruit itself is 
variously defined as a kind of melon or gourd, or 
even a cucumber. The word squash is the ter- 
mination of these words. Asku’tasquash is given 
as signifying literally “green things that may be 
eaten raw’; really it seems to mean “what is 
eaten raw or green,’ and the termination of the 
word is the plural. 
CHINCAPIN is'a word familiar to dwellers in 
the south. It is a very small chestnut which 
was a common article of food among the In- 
dians of Virginia when the white men met them. 
It is spokeri of by Captain John Smith as being 
esteemed “a great daintie,” and another early 
writer declares it to be “raw or boyled, luscious 
and harty meate.’ The nuts were gathered by 
the Indian women and dried and stored for 
winter use. Boiled with flesh they formed a 
wholesome nourishing food, or pounded to a 
meal were used for thickening soups. 
The water chincapin is the seed of the south- 
ern lotus (Nelumbo lutea). 
The acorn of the chestnut oak is sometimes 
called chincapin and the tree a chincapin oak, 
as is also another species of oak whose acorns 
in size and taste resemble the chincapin. A Cali- 
fornian tree (Castanopsis chrysophylla) bears 
a small nut inclosed in a spiny husk, which is 
also called chincapin. 
The Indian word from which chincapin is de- 
rived is given by Mr. Gerard 
meaning “rattle-nut,’ probably because these 
nuts were used by the Indians in their gourd 
rattles, just as in more recent times the Indians 
of the western plains used small stones in their 
rawhide rattles, or as some west coast tribes used 
them in their wooden rattles. The syllable “men” 
or “min” means berry, nut, fruit in many of 
the Algonquin dialects, and the “m’” was changed 
to “p,” apparently about the last of the seven- 
teenth century, making the word very near to 
the one that we now know. 
[TO BE CONTINUED. ] 
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