586 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [.v. s., I, 1899
backward and forward, a rod on which sand has been gummed. Here we have another example of the easy way in which the savage attains his end, and the great difficulty which the modern ethnographer experi- ences in trying to find the paternity of our intricate apparatus of steel and iron. O. T. Mason.
The Adopted Indian Word " Poquosin "— In an article in the
January number of this journal on The Adopted Algonquian Term " Poquosin" Mr Tooker, referring to a communication of mine to the New York Sun of June 30, 1895, in which I stated that the word poquoson apparently meant " place where there is little water," remarks : "This is a very good guess, for . . . there is something 'little ' in the word, but not water." In ascribing to the word the meaning quoted, I intended merely to give its general sense, that being amply sufficient for the purposes of a popular article contributed to an ephemeral pub- lication. There is in the word, it is true, no particle signifying " water," nor is there, on the other hand, as Mr Tooker supposes, any diminutive sign giving the sense of " little " ; yet both terms, " little " and " water," are implied in the root, which is : pdhv (Lenape, Cree, Abnaki) ; pdgw (Massachusetts); bdgw (Ojibwa), "to contain but little water," "to be shallow," " to be dryish." Poquoson or poquosin, for pdkwusin or pdkwesin, has the form of, and is, an inanimate verbal adjective. Ad- jectives of this class in -sin (si-\-n) are derived from inanimate tran- sitive verbs of the conjugation in -ton, in which the sign si, when used before the verbal suffix, denotes that the subject " puts," " lays," " places," or " arranges " the object in the manner or condition signified by the root. They have, naturally, a passive sense, and denote that the object which they qualify is laid, put, placed, situated, or located in a certain manner, condition, or position as the result of some action that it has suffered. Poquosin (pdkwcsiri) means "it is low-watered," "it is rendered somewhat dry," through the effect of some action, such as drainage, absorption, or evaporation. This agrees perfectly with the definition of poquosin : low, wooded ground or swamp, mostly dry in summer, and covered with water in winter.
The pokelogan mentioned by Mr Tooker is a different word. Among the lumbermen of Maine it designates an inlet that extends into the land from a stream or lake — a sort of blind ditch that leads nowhere. Thoreau's Indian guide pronounced the word spokelogan, and, when asked its meaning, replied that there was " no Indian in 'em." This is very true, for the word, as spelled, is unintelligible. It is probably a corruption of pukdlagat, "open ditch."
As Mr Tooker attempts to connect the name Poughkeepsie with the
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