Some of the examples which have been given,—­such as Higganum, Nunkertunk, Shawmut, Swamscot and Titicut,—­show how the difficulties of analysis have been increased by phonetic corruption, sometimes to such a degree as hardly to leave a trace of the original.  Another and not less striking example is presented by Snipsic, the modern name of a pond between Ellington and Tolland.  If we had not access to Chandler’s Survey of the Mohegan Country, made in 1705, who would suppose that ‘Snipsic’ was the surviving representative of Moshenupsuck, ‘great-pond brook’ or (literally) ‘great-pond outlet,’ at the south end of Moshenups or Mashenips ‘great pond?’ The territories of three nations, the Muhhekans, Nipmucks and River Indians, ran together at this point.

‘Nameroake,’ ‘Namareck’ or ‘Namelake,’ in East Windsor, was transformed to May-luck, giving to a brook a name which ‘tradition’ derives from the ‘luck’ of a party of emigrants who came in ‘May’ to the Connecticut.[80] The original name appears to have been the equivalent of ‘Nameaug’ or ‘Nameoke’ (New London), and to mean ’the fishing place,’—­n’amaug or nama-ohke.

[Footnote 80:  Stiles’s History of Ancient Windsor, p. 111.]

But none of these names exhibits a more curious transformation than that of ‘Bagadoose’ or ‘Bigaduce,’ a peninsula on the east side of Penobscot Bay, now Castine, Me.  Williamson’s History of Maine (ii. 572) states on the authority of Col.  J. Wardwell of Penobscot, in 1820, that this point bore the name of a former resident, a Frenchman, one ‘Major Biguyduce.’  Afterwards, the historian was informed that ‘Marche bagyduce’ was an Indian word meaning ‘no good cove.’  Mr. Joseph Williamson, in a paper in the Maine Historical Society’s Collections (vol. vi. p. 107) identifies this name with the Matchebiguatus of Edward Winslow’s quitclaim to Massachusetts in 1644,[81] and correctly translates the prefix matche by ‘bad,’ but adds:  “What Biguatus means, I do not know.”  Purchas mentions ‘Chebegnadose,’ as an Indian town on the ‘Apananawapeske’ or Penobscot.[82] Rale gives, as the name of the place on “the river where M. de Gastin [Castine] is,” Matsibig[oo]ad[oo]ssek, and on his authority we may accept this form as nearly representing the original.  The analysis now becomes more easy. Matsi-a[n]baga[oo]at-ek, means ‘at the bad-shelter place,—­bad covert or cove;’ and matsi-a[n]baga[oo]at[oo]s-ek the diminutive, ’at the small bad-shelter place.’  About two miles and a half above the mouth of the Kenebec was a place called by the Indians ‘Abagadusset’ or ’Abequaduset’—­the same name without the prefix—­meaning ’at the cove, or place of shelter.’

[Footnote 81:  Printed in note to Savage’s Winthrop’s Journal, ii. 180.]

[Footnote 82:  See Thornton’s Ancient Pemaquid, in Maine Hist.  Collections, v. 156.]