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.Ruttenber, Edward Manning
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.
Ruttenber, Edward Manning
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Names, Geographical -- New York (State); Names, Indian -- North America
Mahway, Mawayway, Mawawier, etc., a stream and place now Mahway, N. J.,
was primarily applied to a place described: "An Indian field called
Maywayway, just over the north side of a small red hill called
Mainatanung." The stream, on an old survey, is marked as flowing south
to the Ramapo from a point west of Cheesekook Mountain. The name is
probably from _Mawéwi_ (Zeisb.), "Assembly," where streams or paths, or
boundaries, meet or come together. (See Mahequa.)
Mainaitanung, Cal. N. Y. Land Papers, and _Mainating_ in N. J. Records,
given as the name of "A small red hill" (see Mahway), does not describe
a "Red hill," but a place "at" a small hill--_Min-attinuey-unk._ The
suffixed locative, _-unk,_ seems to have been generally used in
connection with the names of hills.
Pompton--_Ponton,_ East N. J. Records, 1695; _Pompeton, Pumpton, Pompeton,_
N. Y. Records--now preserved in Pompton as the name of a village at the
junction of the Pequannock, the Wynokie, and the Ramapo, and continued
as the name of the united stream south of Pompton Village to its junction
with the Passaic, and also as the name of a town in Passaic County,
N. J., as well as in Pompton Falls, Pompton Plains, etc., and historically
as the name of an Indian clan, appears primarily as the name of the Ramapo
River as now known. It is not met in early New York Records, but in
English Records, in 1694, a tract of land is described as being "On a
river called Paquannock, or Pasqueck, near the falls of Pampeton," and
in 1695, in application to lands described as lying "On Pompton Creek,
about twenty miles above ye mouth of said creek where it falls into
Paquanneck River," the particular place referred to being known as
Ramopuch, and now as Ramapo. (See Ramapo.) Rev. Heckewelder located the
name at the mouth of the Pompton (as now known) where it falls into the
Passaic, and interpreted it from _Pihm_ (root _Pimé_), "Crooked mouth,"
an interpretation now rejected by Algonquian students from the fact that
the mouth of the stream is not crooked. A reasonable suggestion is that
the original was _Pomoten,_ a representative town, or a combination of
towns. [FN-1] which would readily be converted to Pompton. In 1710,
"Memerescum, 'sole sachem of all the nations (towns or families) of
Indians on Remopuck River, and on the east and west branches thereof, on
Saddle River, Pasqueck River, Narranshunk River and Tappan,' gave title
to all the lands in upper or northwestern Bergen and Passaic counties."
(Nelson, "Indians of New Jersey," 111), indicating a combination of
clans. Fifty years later the tribal title is entered in the treaty of
Easton (1758) as the "Wappings, Opings or Pomptons," [FN-2] as claimants
of an interest in lands in northern New Jersey, [FN-3] subordinately to
the "Minsis, Monseys or Minisinks," with whom the treaty was made. The
clan was then living at Otsiningo as ward's of the Senecas, and seems to
have been composed of representatives of several historic northern New
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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