La Metairie's 'Olighinsipou' suggests another possible derivation which may be worth mention. The Indian name of the Alleghanies has been said,—I do not now remember on whose authority,—to mean 'Endless Mountains.' 'Endless' cannot be more exactly expressed in any Algonkin language than by 'very long' or 'longest,'—in the Delaware, Eluwi-guneu. "The very long or longest river" would be Eluwi-guneu sipu, or, if the words were compounded in one, Eluwi-gunesipu.
[23] Paper on Indian names, ut supra, p. 367; Historical Account, &c., pp. 29-32.
[24] Morgan's League of the Iroquois, pp. 466, 468.
[25] Ms. Itinerary. He was careful to preserve the Indian pronunciation of local names, and the form in which he gives this name convinces me that it is not, as I formerly supposed, the quinnuppohke (or quinuppeohke) of Eliot,—meaning 'the surrounding country' or the 'land all about' the site of New Haven.
[26] Dictionary, s.v. 'Noms.'
[27] Paug is regularly formed from pe (Abn. bi), the base of nippe, and may be translated more exactly by 'where water is' or 'place of water.'
[28] A bound of Human Garret's land, one mile north-easterly from Ninigret's old Fort. See Conn. Col. Records, ii. 314.
[29] Foster and Whitney's Report on the Geology of Lake Superior, &c., Pt. II p. 400.
[30] Râle gives Abn. mitsegan, 'fianté.' Thoreau, fishing in a river in Maine, caught several sucker-like fishes, which his Abnaki guide threw away, saying they were 'Michegan fish, i.e., soft and stinking fish, good for nothing.'—Maine Woods, p. 210.
[31] Primarily, that which 'breaks,' 'cleaves,' 'splits:' distinguishing the harder rocks—such as were used for making spear and arrow heads, axes, chisels, corn-mortars, &c., and for striking fire,—from the softer, such as steatite (soap-stone) from which pots and other vessels, pipe-bowls, &c., were fashioned.