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
It is safe to say that at either the Dans Kamer, Low Point, or Kingston
Point, the clan would have been seated on a bay, cove, recess or
indentation shaped like a bay, and it is also safe to say that _Warona_
and _Walina_ may be read as equivalents, the former in the local dialect,
and the latter in the Eastern, and that its general meaning is "Concave,
hollowing site." Zeisberger wrote _l_ instead of _r_ in the Minsi-Lenape,
hence _Woalac,_ "A hollow or excavation"; _Walóh,_ "A cove"; _Walpecat,_
"Very deep water." The dialectic _r_ prevails pretty generally on the
Hudson and on the Upper Delaware. On the latter, near Port Jervis, is
met of record _Warin-sags-kameck,_ which is surely the equivalent of
_Walina-ask-kameck,_ "A hollowing or concave site, a meadow or field."
It was written by Arent Schuyler, the noted interpreter, as the name of
a field which he described as "A meadow or vly." _Vly_ is a contraction
of Dutch _Vallei,_ meaning "A hollow or depression in which water stands
in the rainy season and is dry at other times," hence "hollowing." _Ask_
(generic), meaning "Green, raw," is the radical of words meaning
"meadow," "marsh," etc., and _-kameck_ stands for an enclosed field, or
place having definite boundaries as a hollow. _Awan_ (_-awan, -wan,
-uan,_ etc.), as Dr. Gatschet probably read the orthography, is an
impersonal verb termination met on the Hudson in Matteawan, Kitchiwan,
etc. Mr. Gerard writes that it was sometimes followed by the participial
and subjunctive _k._ It may have been so written here, but it seems to
be a form of the guttural aspirate _gh,_ for which it is exchanged in
many cases, here and in Kitchiwangh. In Connecticut on the Sound
apparently the same name is met in _Waranawankek,_ indicating that
whoever wrote it on the Figurative of 1614-16 was familiar with the
dialect of the coast Indians. As it stands the name is one of the oldest
and most sonorous in the valley of Hudson's River.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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