1722. The
opinion expressed in a note of Charlevoix (Histoire de la Nouvelle
France, vol. i., p. 13), is that deserving most credit. "D'autres
derivent ce nom du mot Iroquois 'Kannata,' qui se prononce Cannada, et
signifie un amas de cabanes." This derivation would reconcile the
different assertions of the early discoverers, some of whom give the
name of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence; others, equally
worthy of credit, confine it to a small district in the neighborhood of
Stadacona (now Quebec). _Seconda Relatione di Jacques Cartier_, in
Ramusio, tom. iii., p. 442, 447. "Questo popolo (di Hochelaga) non
partendo mai del lore paese, ne essendo vagabondi, come quelli di Canada
e di Saguenay benche dette di Canada sieno lor suggetti con otte o nove
altri villaggi posti sopra detto fiume." Father du Creux, who arrived in
Canada about the year 1625, in his "Historia Canadensis," gives the name
of Canada to the whole valley of the St. Lawrence, confessing, however,
his ignorance of the etymology: "Porro de Etymologia vocis Canada nihil
satis certe potui comperire; priscam quidem esse, constat ex eo, quod
illam ante annos prope sexaginta passim usurpari audiebam puer."

Duponceau, in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of
Philadelphia, founds his conjecture of the Indian origin of the name of
Canada upon the fact that, in the translation of the Gospel of St.
Matthew into the Mohawk tongue, made by Brandt, the Indian chief, the
word Canada is always used to signify a village. The mistake of the
early discoverers, in taking the name of a part for that of the whole,
is very pardonable in persons ignorant of the Indian language. It is
highly improbable that at the period of its discovery the name of Canada
was extended over this immense country. The migratory habits of the
aborigines are alone conclusive against it. They distinguished
themselves by their different tribes, not by the country over which they
hunted and rode at will. They more probably gave names to localities
than adopted their own from any fixed place of residence. The Iroquois
and the Ottawas conferred their appellations on the rivers that ran
through their hunting grounds, and the Huron tribe gave theirs to the
vast lake now bearing their name. It has, however, never been pretended
that any Indian tribe bore the name of Canada, and the natural
conclusion therefore is, that the word "Canada" was a mere local
appellation, without reference