_Aumsuog_ or _Ommissuog_ (Abn. _a[n]ms[oo]ak_), 'small fish,'--especially alewives and herrings,--is a component of the name of the Abnaki village on the Kennebec, _A[n]mes[oo]k-ka[n]tti_; of _Mattammiscontis_, a tributary of the Kennebec (see p. 25, ante), and _probably_, of _Amoscoggin_ and _Amoskeag_.
_Qunnôsu_ (pl. _-suog;_ Abn. _k[oo]n[oo]sé;_ Old Alg. _kino[n]jé_; Chip. _keno´zha_;) is found in the name of _Kenosha_, a town and county in Wisconsin; perhaps, in _Kenjua_ or _Kenzua_ creek and township, in Warren county, Pa. _Quinshepaug_ or _Quonshapauge_, in Mendon, Mass., seems to denote a 'pickerel pond' (_qunnosu-paug_). _Maskinongé_, i.e. _massa-kino[n]jé_, 'great pike' or maskelunge, names a river and lake in Canada.
_Pescatum_, said to mean 'pollock,' occurs as an adjectival in _Peskadamioukka[n]tti_, the modern _Passamaquoddy_ (p. 26).
_Naha[n]m[oo]_, the Abnaki name of the 'eel,' is found in "_Nehumkeag_, the English of which is _Eel Land_, ... a stream or brook that empties itself into Kennebec River," not far from Cobbissecontee.[88] This brook was sometimes called by the English, _Nehumkee_. The Indian name of Salem, Mass., was _Nehumkeke_ or _Naümkeag_, and a place on the Merrimac, near the mouth of Concord River (now in Lowell, I believe,) had the same name,--written, _Naamkeak_.
[Footnote 88: Col. William Lithgow's deposition, 1767,--in New England Historical and General Register, xxiv. 24.]
In view of the illustrations which have been given, we repeat what was stated in the beginning of this paper, that Indian place-names are not _proper names_, that is unmeaning marks, but significant _appellatives_, each conveying a _description_ of the locality to which it belongs. In those parts of the country where Indian languages are still spoken, the analysis of such names is comparatively easy. Chippewa, Cree, or (in another family) Sioux-Dakota geographical names may generally be translated with as little difficulty as other words or syntheses in the same languages. In New England, and especially in our part of New England, the case is different. We can hardly expect to ascertain the meaning of all the names which have come down to us from dead languages of aboriginal tribes. Some of the obstacles to accurate analysis have been pointed out. Nearly every geographical name has been mutilated or has suffered change. It would indeed be strange if Indian polysyntheses, with their frequent gutturals and nasals, adopted from unwritten languages and by those who were ignorant of their meanings, had been exempted from the phonetic change to which all language is subject, as a result of the universal disposition "to put more facile in the stead of more difficult sounds or combination of sounds, and to get rid altogether of what is unnecessary in the words we use."[89] What Professor Haldeman calls _otosis_, 'that error of the ear by which words are perverted to a more familiar form,'[90] has effected some curious transformations. _Swatara_,[91] the name of a stream in Pennsylvania, becomes 'Sweet Arrow;' the _Potopaco_ of John Smith's map (_p[oo]tuppâg_, a bay or cove; Eliot,) on a bend of the Potomac, is naturalized as 'Port Tobacco.' _Nama'auke_, 'the place of fish' in East Windsor, passes through _Namerack_ and _Namalake_ to the modern 'May Luck.' _Moskitu-auke_, 'grass land,' in Scituate, R.I., gives the name of 'Mosquito Hawk' to the brook which crosses it.[92]