CHAPTER XIII.
INDIAN NAMES.
The proper names of Indians are in general given to them after animals of various kinds, and even fishes and reptiles. Thus they are called the Beaver, Otter, Sun-fish, Black-fish, Rattle-snake, Black-snake, &c. They have also other descriptive names, from their personal qualities or appearances, and sometimes from fancy or caprice; but many of those are given them by the whites, such as Pipe, White-eyes, Kill-buck, &c., which are not real Indian names. They do not always preserve the names first given to them, but often assume a new one after they have come to man’s estate.
Indians, who have particularly distinguished themselves by their conduct, or by some meritorious act, or who have been the subjects of some remarkable occurrence, have names given to them in allusion to those circumstances. Thus, I have known a man whose name would signify in our language the beloved lover, and one who was named Met by love. Another, a great warrior, who had been impatiently waiting for day-light to engage the enemy, was afterwards called Cause day-light, or Make day-light appear. So, one who had come in with a heavy load of turkies on his back, was called The Carrier of Turkies, and another whose shoes were generally torn or patched, was called Bad Shoes. All those names are generally expressed in one single word, in compounding which the Indians are very ingenious. Thus, the name they had for the place where Philadelphia now stands, and which they have preserved notwithstanding the great change which has taken place, is Kúequenáku,[156] which means, The grove of the long pine trees.
They have proper names, not only for all towns, villages, mountains, valleys, rivers, and streams, but for all remarkable spots, as for instance, those which are particularly infested with gnats or musquitoes, where snakes have their dens, &c. Those names always contain an allusion to such particular circumstance, so that foreigners, even though acquainted with their language, will often be at a loss to understand their discourse.
To strangers, white men for instance, they will give names derived from some remarkable quality which they have observed in them, or from some circumstance which remarkably strikes them. When they were told the meaning of the name of William Penn, they translated it into their own language by Miquon, which means a feather or quill. The Iroquois call him Onas, which in their idiom means the same thing.
The first name given by the Indians to the Europeans who landed in Virginia was Wapsid Lenape (white people;) when, however, afterwards they began to commit murders on the red men, whom they pierced with swords, they gave to the Virginians the name Mechanschican, (long knives,) to distinguish them from others of the same colour.