_-ongkomum_, and the Great Pond still retains, it is said, the name of
Chaubenagungamaug (_chabenukong-amaug_?), "the boundary
fishing-place." This pond was a bound mark between the Nipmucks and
the Muhhekans, and was resorted to by Indians of both nations.

* * * * *

III. Participials and verbals employed as place-names may generally,
as was before remarked, be referred to one or the other of the two
preceding classes. The distinction between noun and verb is less
clearly marked in Indian grammar than in English. The name
_Mushauwomuk_ (corrupted to _Shawmut_) may be regarded as a
participle from the verb _mushau[oo]m_ (Narr. _mishoonhom_) 'he goes
by boat,'--or as a noun, meaning 'a ferry,'--or as a name of the first
class, compounded of the adjectival _mush[oo]-n_, 'boat or canoe,' and
_wom[oo]-uk_, habitual or customary _going_, i.e., 'where there is
going-by-boat.'

The analysis of names of this class is not easy. In most cases, its
results must be regarded as merely provisional. Without some clue
supplied by history or tradition and without accurate knowledge of the
locality to which the name belongs, or _is supposed_ to belong, one
can never be certain of having found the right key to the synthesis,
however well it may seem to fit the lock. Experience Mayhew writing
from Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard, in 1722, gives the Indian name of
the place where he was living as _Nimpanickhickanuh_. If he had not
added the information that the name "signifies in English, _The place
of thunder clefts_," and that it was so called "because there was once
a tree there split in pieces by the thunder," it is not likely that
any one in this generation would have discovered its precise