'Nameroake,' 'Namareck' or 'Namelake,' in East Windsor, was transformed to May-luck, giving to a brook a name which 'tradition' derives from the 'luck' of a party of emigrants who came in 'May' to the Connecticut.[80] The original name appears to have been the equivalent of 'Nameaug' or 'Nameoke' (New London), and to mean 'the fishing place,'—n'amaug or nama-ohke.
But none of these names exhibits a more curious transformation than that of 'Bagadoose' or 'Bigaduce,' a peninsula on the east side of Penobscot Bay, now Castine, Me. Williamson's History of Maine (ii. 572) states on the authority of Col. J. Wardwell of Penobscot, in 1820, that this point bore the name of a former resident, a Frenchman, one 'Major Biguyduce.' Afterwards, the historian was informed that 'Marche bagyduce' was an Indian word meaning 'no good cove.' Mr. Joseph Williamson, in a paper in the Maine Historical Society's Collections (vol. vi. p. 107) identifies this name with the Matchebiguatus of Edward Winslow's quitclaim to Massachusetts in 1644,[81] and correctly translates the prefix matche by 'bad,' but adds: "What Biguatus means, I do not know." Purchas mentions 'Chebegnadose,' as an Indian town on the 'Apananawapeske' or Penobscot.[82] Râle gives, as the name of the place on "the river where M. de Gastin [Castine] is," Matsibig[oo]ad[oo]ssek, and on his authority we may accept this form as nearly representing the original. The analysis now becomes more easy. Matsi-anbaga[oo]at-ek, means 'at the bad-shelter place,—bad covert or cove;' and matsi-anbaga[oo]at[oo]s-ek the diminutive, 'at the small bad-shelter place.' About two miles and a half above the mouth of the Kenebec was a place called by the Indians 'Abagadusset' or 'Abequaduset'—the same name without the prefix—meaning 'at the cove, or place of shelter.'
The adjectivals employed in the composition of Algonkin names are very numerous, and hardly admit of classification. Noun, adjective, adverb or even an active verb may, with slight change of form, serve as a prefix. But, as was before remarked, every prefix, strictly considered, is an adverb or must be construed as an adverb,—the synthesis which serves as a name having generally the verb form. Some of the most common of these prefixes have been mentioned on preceding pages. A few others, whose meanings are less obvious and have been sometimes mistaken by translators, may deserve more particular notice.
1. Pohqui, pohquae´; Narr. pâuqui; Abn. p[oo]'k[oo]ié; 'open,' 'clear' (primarily, 'broken'). In composition with ohke, 'land,' or formed as a verbal in -aug, it denotes 'cleared land' or 'an open place:' as in the names variously written 'Pahquioque,' 'Paquiaug;' 'Pyquaag;' 'Poquaig,' 'Payquaoge,' &c., in Danbury and Wethersfield, and in Athol, Mass.
2. Pahke (Abn. pang[oo]i,) 'clear,' 'pure'. Found with paug, 'standing water' or 'pond,' in such names as 'Pahcupog,' 'Paquabaug,' &c. See [page 16].
3. Pâguan-aü, 'he destroys,' 'he slaughters' (Narr. paúquana, 'there is a slaughter') in composition with ohke denotes 'place of slaughter' or 'of destruction,' and commemorates some sanguinary victory or disastrous defeat. This is probably the meaning of nearly all the names written 'Poquannoc,' 'Pequannoc,' 'Pauganuck,' &c., of places in Bridgeport (Stratfield), Windsor and Groton, Conn., and of a town in New Jersey. Some of these, however, may possibly be derived from paukunni and ohke, 'dark place.'
4. Pemi (Abn. pemai-[oo]i; Del. pimé-u; Cree, peemé;) denotes deviation from a straight line; 'sloping,' 'aslant,' 'twisted.' Pummeeche (Cree, pimich; Chip. pemiji; Abn. pemetsi;) 'crosswise; traverse.' Eliot wrote 'pummeeche may' for 'cross-way,' Obad. 14; and pumetshin (literally, 'it crosses') for 'a cross,' as in up-pumetshin-eum, 'his cross,' Luke xiv. 27. Pemiji-gome or Pemiji-guma, 'cross water,' is the Chippewa name for a lake whose longest diameter crosses the general course of the river which flows through it,—which stretches across, not with the stream. There is such a lake in Minnesota, near the sources of the Mississippi, just below the junction of the two primary forks of that river; another ('Pemijigome') in the chain of small lakes which are the northern sources of the Manidowish (and Chippewa) River in Wisconsin, and still another near the Lacs des Flambeaux, the source of Flambeau River, an affluent of the Manidowish.
The same prefix or its equivalent occurs in the name of a lake in Maine, near the source of the Alligash branch of St. John's River. Mr. Greenleaf, in a list of Indian names made in 1823,[83] gave this as "Baam´chenun´gamo or Ahp´moojee`negmook." Thoreau[84] was informed by his Penobscot guide, that the name "means 'Lake that is crossed;' because the usual course lies across, not along it." There is another "Cross Lake," in Aroostook county, near the head of Fish River. We seem to recognize, and with less difficulty, the same prefix in Pemigewasset, but the full composition of that name is not clear.
Pemi- denotes, not a crossing of but deviation from a straight line, whether vertical or horizontal. In place-names it may generally be translated by 'sloping' or 'aslant;' sometimes by 'awry' or 'tortuous.' Pemadené, which Râle gives as the Abnaki word for 'mountain,' denotes a sloping mountain-side (pemi-adené), in distinction from one that is steep or precipitous. 'Pemetiq,' the Indian name of Mount Desert Island, as written by Father Biard in 1611, is the Abnaki peme'teki, 'sloping land.' Pemaquid appears to be another form of the word which Râle wrote 'Pemaankke,' meaning (with the locative suffix) 'at the place where the land slopes;' where "le terre penche; est en talus."[85] Pymatuning, in Pennsylvania, is explained by Heckewelder, as "the dwelling place of the man with the crooked mouth; Pihmtónink" (from pimeu and 't[oo]n).