Scripto | Page Revision | Transcription

Correspondence from Charles E. Banks to Fannie Hardy Eckstorm ca. 1915-1930, Part 5

ms158_b1f005_005.02.pdf

Revision as of Sep 26, 2018, 10:03:23 PM, edited by Atibbitts

�Nov. 30, 1930 Dear Mrs. Eckstorm

Sunday being Injun day with me, I proceed accordingly. I have a hill - in York. It is one of the few places in the town that still bears the remnants of a good Abnaki word. The modernized version of it - or rather the clipped version of it for two centuries - is Tonnemy Hill - various spellings. The lazy men called it that, but fortunately some meticulous person saved what seems to be the whole of it - [?] which strikes me as a decent thing to do. It rises 220 ft above sea level. Near by it are those fair sized ponds, one of which had the name of Tonnemy Pond - in various spellings - now called Scituate Pond from the Scituate man men who settled in York 1640 - about a half dozen of them. So far as I can see the word Wunnam|aton (over) eton| amy (e over the y) has nothing in it to connote a pond - and does have the gessarie tense for a hill. I suppose the prefix Wunnam (underscored) or Wannam (underscored) gives the suggestion of Wunne (underscored) signifying beautiful, good, though I fail to see why a hill should be either good or beautiful to Lo. in the abstract sense. Roger Williams gives Wunnan (underscored) as meaning the use of red paint by the natives, but I am not aware that much materials was indigenous or near that hill. I do not know what they used for decorating themselves-possibly some sort of ferruginous clay or an iron oxide. It is rather singular that there are so few Indian place names in York. Neddick, [?], [?] comprises them all. The real mountains, [?] did not leave the name for us to wangle its remains, and some names of never were tagged with the name of a rock (Neddick)