[Footnote 93: Correspondence of Duponceau and Heckewelder, in Trans. Historical and Literary Committee of Am. Philos. Society, p. 403.]
[Footnote 95: Preface to Duponceau's translation of Zeisberger's Grammar, p. 21. On Duponceau's authority, Dr. Pickering accepted this analysis and gave it currency by repeating it, in his admirable paper on "Indian Languages," in the Encyclopædia Americana, vol. vi.]
We meet with similar analyses in almost every published list of Indian names. Some examples have been given in the preceding pages of this paper,--as in the interpretation of 'Winnipisiogee' (p. 32) by 'the beautiful water of the high place,' _s_ or _[=e]s_ being regarded as the fractional representative of '_kees_, high.' _Pemigewasset_ has been translated by 'crooked place of pines' and 'crooked mountain pine place,'--as if _k[oo]-a_, 'a pine,' or its plural _k[oo]-ash_, could dispense in composition with its significant base, _k[oo]_, and appear by a grammatical formative only.
6. No interpretation of a place-name is correct which makes _bad grammar_ of the original. The apparatus of Indian synthesis was cumbersome and perhaps inelegant, but it was nicely adjusted to its work. The grammatical relations of words were never lost sight of. The several components of a name had their established order, not dependent upon the will or skill of the composer. When we read modern advertisements of "cheap gentlemen's traveling bags" or "steel-faced carpenters' claw hammers," we may construe such phrases with a latitude which was not permitted to the Algonkins. If 'Connecticut' means--as some have supposed it to mean--'long deer place,' it denotes a place where _long deer_ abounded; if 'Piscataqua' was named 'great deer river,' it was because the deer found _in_ that river were of remarkable size. 'Coaquanock' or, as Heckewelder wrote it, 'Cuwequenaku,' the site of Philadelphia, may mean 'pine long-place' but cannot mean 'long pine-place' or 'grove of long pine trees.' If 'Pemigewasset' is compounded of words signifying 'crooked,' 'pines,' and 'place,' it denotes 'a place of crooked pines,'--not 'crooked place of pines.'
Again--every Indian name is _complete within itself_. A mere adjectival or qualificative cannot serve independently, leaving the real ground-word to be supplied by the hearer. River names must contain some element which denotes 'river;' names of lakes or ponds something which stands for 'lake' or 'pond.' The Indians had not our fashion of speech which permits Hudson's River to be called 'the Hudson,' drops the word 'lake' from 'Champlain' or 'Erie,' and makes "the Alleghanies" a geographical name. This difference must not be lost sight of, in analysis or translation. _Agawam_ or _Auguan_ (a name given to several localities in New England where there are low flat meadows or marshes,) cannot be the equivalent of the Abnaki _ag[oo]a[n]n_, which means 'a smoke-dried fish,'[96]--though _ag[oo]a[n]na-ki_ or something like it (if such a name should be found), might mean 'smoked-fish place.' _Chickahominy_ does not stand for 'great corn,' nor _Pawcatuck_ for 'much or many deer;'[97] because neither 'corn' nor 'deer' designates _place_ or implies fixed location, and therefore neither can be made the ground-word of a place-name. _Androscoggin_ or _Amoscoggin_ is not from the Abnaki '_amaskohegan_, fish-spearing,'[98] for a similar reason (and moreover, because the termination _-h[=e]gan_ denotes always an _instrument_, never an _action_ or a _place_; it may belong to 'a fish-spear,' but not to 'fish spearing' nor to the locality 'where fish are speared.')