[Footnote 6: Jesuit Relations, 1633, 1636, 1640.]
[Footnote 7: Hind's Exploration of Labrador, i. 9, 32.]
Near the Atlantic seaboard, the most common substantival components of river names are (1) _-tuk_ and (2) _-hanne_, _-han_, or _-huan_. Neither of these is an independent word. They are inseparable nouns-generic, or generic affixes.
-TUK (Abn. _-teg[oo]é_; Del. _-ittuk_;) denotes a river whose waters are driven _in waves_, by tides or wind. It is found in names of tidal rivers and estuaries; less frequently, in names of _broad and deep_ streams, not affected by tides. With the adjectival _missi_, 'great,' it forms _missi-tuk_,--now written _Mystic_,--the name of 'the great river' of Boston bay, and of another wide-mouthed tidal river in the Pequot country, which now divides the towns of Stonington and Groton.
Near the eastern boundary of the Pequot country, was the river which the Narragansetts called _Paquat-tuk_, sometimes written _Paquetock_, now _Pawcatuck_, 'Pequot river,'--the present eastern boundary of Connecticut. Another adjectival prefix, _pohki_ or _pahke_, 'pure,' 'clear,' found in the name of several tidal streams, is hardly distinguishable from the former, in the modern forms of _Pacatock_, _Paucatuck_, &c.
_Quinni-tuk_ is the 'long tidal-river.' With the locative affix, _Quinni-tuk-ut_, 'on long river,'--now _Connecticut_,--was the name of the valley, or lands both sides of the river. In one early deed (1636), I find the name written _Quinetucquet_; in another, of the same year, _Quenticutt_. Roger Williams (1643) has _Qunnihticut_, and calls the Indians of this region _Quintik-óock_, i.e. 'the long river people.' The _c_ in the second syllable of the modern name has no business there, and it is difficult to find a reason for its intrusion.
'_Lenapewihittuck_' was the Delaware name of 'the river of the Lenape,' and '_Mohicannittuck_,' of 'the river of the Mohicans' (Hudson River).[8]
[Footnote 8: Heckewelder's Historical account, &c., p. 33. He was mistaken in translating "the word _hittuck_," by "a rapid stream."]
Of _Pawtucket_ and _Pawtuxet_, the composition is less obvious; but we have reliable Indian testimony that these names mean, respectively, 'at the falls' and 'at the little falls.' Pequot and Narragansett interpreters, in 1679, declared that Blackstone's River, was "called in Indian _Pautuck_ (which signifies, a Fall), because there the fresh water falls into the salt water."[9] So, the upper falls of the Quinebaug river (at Danielsonville, Conn.) were called "_Powntuck_, which is a general name for all Falls," as Indians of that region testified.[10] There was another Pautucket, 'at the falls' of the Merrimac (now Lowell); and another on Westfield River, Mass. _Pawtuxet_, i.e. _pau't-tuk-es-it_, is the regularly formed diminutive of _paut-tuk-it_. The village of Pawtuxet, four miles south of Providence, R.I., is "at the little falls" of the river to which their name has been transferred. The first settlers of Plymouth were informed by Samoset, that the place which they had chosen for their plantation was called '_Patuxet_,'--probably because of some 'little falls' on Town Brook.[11] There was another 'Pautuxet,' or 'Powtuxet,' on the Quinebaug, at the lower falls; and a river 'Patuxet' (Patuxent), in Maryland. The same name is ingeniously disguised by Campanius, as '_Poaetquessing_,' which he mentions as one of the principal towns of the Indians on the Delaware, just below the lower falls of that river at Trenton; and 'Poutaxat' was understood by the Swedes to be the Indian name both of the river and bay.[12] The adjectival _pawt-_ or _pauat-_ seems to be derived from a root meaning 'to make a loud noise.' It is found in many, perhaps in all Algonkin languages. '_Pawating_,' as Schoolcraft wrote it, was the Chippewa name of the Sault Ste. Marie, or Falls of St. Mary's River,--pronounced _poú-at-ing´_, or _pau-at-u[n]_, the last syllable representing the locative affix,--"at the Falls." The same name is found in Virginia, under a disguise which has hitherto prevented its recognition. Capt. John Smith informs us that the "place of which their great Emperor taketh his name" of _Powhatan_, or _Pawatan_, was near "the Falls" of James River,[13] where is now the city of Richmond. 'Powatan' is _pauat-hanne_, or 'falls on a rapid stream.'