Loading your reading…

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them. — John Shaqi

History

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.

Name: Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.
Author: Ruttenber, Edward Manning

Ruttenber, Edward Manning

Indians of North America -- New York (State); Names, Geographical -- New York (State); Names, Indian -- North America

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: Map of Hudson's River, part 1.]

[Illustration: Map of Hudson's River, part 2.]

[Illustration: Map of New Netherlands, part 1.]

[Illustration: Map of New Netherlands, part 2.]

                    FOOTPRINTS OF THE RED MEN.

                          * * * * *

                     Indian Geographical Names

                  IN THE VALLEY OF HUDSON'S RIVER,
                    THE VALLEY OF THE MOHAWK,
                      AND ON THE DELAWARE:
                  THEIR LOCATION AND THE PROBABLE
                     MEANING OF SOME OF THEM.

                          * * * * *

                             BY
                       E. M. RUTTENBER,
    _Author of "History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River."_

                          * * * * *

"Indian place-names are not proper names, that is unmeaning words, but
significant appellatives each conveying a description of the locality
to which it belongs."--_Trumbull._

                          * * * * *

                 PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES
                           OF THE
             New York State Historical Association.

                          * * * * *

                     Copyrighted by the

               NEW YORK STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION.
                            1906.

                          * * * * *

                         {INDEX p. 237}

                      Primary Explanations.

                          * * * * *

The locatives of the Indian geographical names which have been handed
down as the names of boundmarks or of places or tribes, are properly a
subject of study on the part of all who would be familiar with the
aboriginal geography of a district or a state. In many cases these names
were quite as designative of geographical centers as are the names of
the towns, villages and cities which have been substituted for them. In
some cases they have been wisely retained, while the specific places to
which they belonged have been lost. In this work special effort has been
made, first, to ascertain the places to which the names belonged as
given in official records, to ascertain the physical features of those
places, and carry back the thought to the poetic period of our
territorial history, "when the original drapery in which nature was
enveloped under the dominion of the laws of vegetation, spread out in
one vast, continuous interminable forest," broken here and there by the
opened patches of corn-lands and the wigwams and villages of the
redmen; secondly, to ascertain the meanings of the aboriginal names,
recognizing fully that, as Dr. Trumbull wrote, "They were not proper
names or mere unmeaning marks, but significant appellatives conveying a
description of the locatives to which they were given." Coming down to
us in the crude orthographies of traders and unlettered men, they are
not readily recognized in the orthographies of the educated missionaries,

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Footprints of the Red Men: Indian geographical names in the valley of Hudson's river, the valley of the Mohawk, and on the Delaware: their location and the probable meaning of some of them.

No reviews yet