There is a Mitchi-gami or (as sometimes written) machi-gummi, ‘large lake,’ in northern Wisconsin, and the river which flows from it has received the same name, with the locative suffix, ‘Machig[=a]mig’ (for mitchi-gaming).  A branch of this river is now called ‘Fence River’ from a mitchihikan or mitchikan, a ’wooden fence’ constructed near its banks, by the Indians, for catching deer.[29] Father Allouez describes, in the ‘Relation’ for 1670 (p. 96), a sort of ‘fence’ or weir which the Indians had built across Fox River, for taking sturgeon &c., and which they called ‘Mitihikan;’ and shortly after, he mentions the destruction, by the Iroquois, of a village of Outagamis (Fox Indians) near his mission station, called Machihigan-ing, [’at the mitchihikan, or weir?’] on the ’Lake of the Illinois,’ now Michigan.  Father Dablon, in the next year’s Relation, calls this lake ‘Mitchiganons.’  Perhaps there was some confusion between the names of the ‘weir’ and the ‘great lake,’ and ‘Michigan’ appears to have been adopted as a kind of compromise between the two.  If so, this modern form of the name is corrupt in more senses than one.[30]

[Footnote 29:  Foster and Whitney’s Report on the Geology of Lake Superior, &c., Pt.  II p. 400.]

[Footnote 30:  Rale gives Abn. mitsegan, ‘fiante.’  Thoreau, fishing in a river in Maine, caught several sucker-like fishes, which his Abnaki guide threw away, saying they were ’Michegan fish, i.e., soft and stinking fish, good for nothing.’—­Maine Woods, p. 210.]

5. -AMAUG, denoting ‘A FISHING PLACE’ (Abn. a[n]ma[n]gan, ’on peche la,’) is derived from the root am or ama, signifying ’to take by the mouth;’ whence, am-aue, ‘he fishes with hook and line,’ and Del. aman, a fish-hook. Wonkemaug for wongun-amaug, ’crooked fishing-place,’ between Warren and New Preston, in Litchfield county, is now ‘Raumaug Lake.’ Ouschank-amaug, in East Windsor, was perhaps the ‘eel fishing-place.’  The lake in Worcester, Quansigamaug, Quansigamug, &c., and now Quinsigamond, was ’the pickerel fishing-place,’ qunnosuog-amaug.

6.  ROCK.  In composition, -PISK or -PSK (Abn. pesk[oo]; Cree, _-pisk_; Chip. _-bik_;) denotes hard or flint-like rock;[31] -OMPSK or O[N]BSK, and, by phonetic corruption, -MSK, (from ompae, ‘upright,’ and _-pisk_,) a ‘standing rock.’  As a substantival component of local names, _-ompsk_ and, with the locative affix, _-ompskut_, are found in such names as—­

[Footnote 31:  Primarily, that which ‘breaks,’ ‘cleaves,’ ‘splits:’  distinguishing the harder rocks—­such as were used for making spear and arrow heads, axes, chisels, corn-mortars, &c., and for striking fire,—­from the softer, such as steatite (soap-stone) from which pots and other vessels, pipe-bowls, &c., were fashioned.]