The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November,
1878, by Various

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Title: Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878
of Popular Literature and Science

Author: Various

Release Date: April 10, 2008 [EBook #25030]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_,

NOVEMBER, 1878.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
J.B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of
Congress, at Washington.

Transcriber's Note:

Variant spelling, dialect, and unusual punctuation have been retained.

SEAWANHAKA, THE ISLAND OF SHELLS.

[Illustration: WRECK OF THE CIRCASSIAN.]

It is not by any means certain what was the name by which Long Island
was known to the aboriginal dwellers in its "forest primeval," or indeed
that they ever had a common name by which to designate it. It seems
probable that each tribe bestowed upon it a different name, expressive
of the aspect that appeared most striking to its primitive and poetical
visitors and occupants. Among so many tribes--the Canarsees (who met
Hudson when on September 4, 1609, he anchored in Gravesend Bay), the
Rockaways, Nyacks, Merrikokes, Matinecocs, Marsapeagues, Nissaquages,
Corchaugs, Setaukets, Secataugs, Montauks, Shinecocs, Patchogues, and
Manhansetts, to say nothing of the Pequots and Narragansetts on the
northern shore of the Sound--a community of usage in regard to
nomenclature could hardly be expected. We accordingly find that one of
the old names of the island was Mattenwake, a compound of _Mattai_, the
Delaware for "island." It was also called Paumanacke (the Indian
original of the prosaic Long Island), Mattanwake (the Narragansett word
for "good" or "pleasant land"), Pamunke and Meitowax. For a name,
however, at once beautiful and suggestive, appropriate to an island
whose sunny shores are strewn with shells, and recalling Indian feuds
and customs, savage or