[221] “_Om_ (_aum_, Eliot), is fish-hook; _aumau-i_, ‘he is fishing’ (with hook and line,) R. Williams; whence _omaën_, (Eliot) ‘a fisherman.’”
[222] “Probably misprinted for _Pantucket_--the equivalent of _Pautucket_, meaning ‘at the fall’ of the river. (The _n_ was not distinctly sounded, but represents the nasalization of the preceding vowel.)”
[223] “_Mattapan_ means ‘sitting down’--or ‘a _setting_ down’--and usually designates the end of a ‘carry’ or portage, where the canoes were put in water again.”
[224] Winslow, in his Relations, says of the Indians: “The people are very ingenious and observative; they keep account of time by the moon, and winters or summers; they know divers of the stars by name; in particular they know the north star, and call it _maske_, which is to say, _the bear_.” (Young’s _Chron. of Pilg._, pp. 365-6.) See also to the same effect, Roger Williams’s _Key_ (_Publications of the Narragansett Club_, vol. i.) and Mr. Trumbull’s note (p. 105). Mr. Trumbull now further adds: “The name (_maske_) was given to Ursa Major or Charles’s Wain, not to the North Star; and by nearly all Algonkin tribes. An interesting note on this point can be found in Hopkins’s _Hist. Memorials of the Housatonic Indians_ (p. 11), and another in Dawson’s _Acadian Geology_ (2d ed. p. 675), showing that the Micmacs still know that constellation as _Mooin_, ‘the bear.’”
[225] Roger Williams, in the preface to his _Key_ (p. 23), says: “Wise and judicious men, with whom I have discoursed, maintain their [the Indians] original to be northward from Tartaria.” The Asiatic origin of the North American Indians was a necessary part of the scriptural dogma of the origin and descent of man. It is safe, however, to assert that, first and last, every possible theory on this subject has been carefully elaborated. It is not necessary, in connection with the _New Canaan_, to enter into the discussion, as the views of those, from St. Gregory to Voltaire, who have taken part in it, have been laboriously collected by Drake in his _Book of Indians_ (ch. ii.).
[226] [muit.] See _supra_, 111, _note_ 1.
[228] David Thomson occupied the island in Boston Harbor, which still bears his name, from some time in 1625, apparently, until his death in 1628 (_supra_, 24). He left a widow and an only son, who inherited the island. Originally, Thomson seems to have been a messenger, or possibly an agent, of the Council for New England. In November, 1622, a patent, covering a considerable tract of land, was issued to him, and the next year, he then being apparently a young man and newly married, he came out and established himself at Piscataqua, whence he afterwards moved to Boston Harbor. All that is known of Thomson can be found in Mr. Deane’s _Notes to an Indenture, &c._, in the _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1876 (pp. 358-81). See also, _Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc._, 1878 (p. 204), and _Memorial History of Boston_ (vol. i. p. 83).