called ’other-side lands,’—­Narr. acawmen-oaki; Abn. aga[n]men-[oo]ki.  With _-tuk_, it forms acawmen-tuk (Abn. aga[n]men-teg[oo]), ‘other-side river,’ or, its diminutive, acawmen-tuk-es (Abn. aga[n]men-teg[oo]ess[oo]), ’the small other-side river,’—­a name first given (as Agamenticus or Accomenticus) to York, Me., from the ‘small tidal-river beyond’ the Piscataqua, on which that town was planted.

Peske-tuk (Abn. peske-teg[oo]e) denotes a ‘divided river,’ or a river which another cleaves.  It is not generally (if ever) applied to one of the ‘forks’ which unite to form the main stream, but to some considerable tributary received by the main stream, or to the division of the stream by some obstacle, near its mouth, which makes of it a ‘double river.’  The primary meaning of the (adjectival) root is ’to divide in two,’ and the secondary, ‘to split,’ ’to divide forcibly, or abruptly.’  These shades of meaning are not likely to be detected under the disguises in which river-names come down to our time.  Rale translates ne-peske, “je vas dans le chemin qui en coupe un autre:”  peskahak[oo]n, “branche.”

Piscataqua, Pascataqua, &c., represent the Abn. peske-teg[oo]e, ‘divided tidal-river.’  The word for ‘place’ (ohke, Abn. ’ki,) being added, gives the form Piscataquak or _-quog_.  There is another Piscataway, in New Jersey,—­not far below the junction of the north and south branches of the Raritan,—­and a Piscataway river in Maryland, which empties into the Potomac; a Piscataquog river, tributary to the Merrimac, in New Hampshire; a Piscataquis (diminutive) in Maine, which empties into the Penobscot. Pasquotank, the name of an arm of Albemarle Sound and of a small river which flows into it, in North Carolina, has probably the same origin.

The adjectival peske, or piske, is found in many other compound names besides those which are formed with _-tuk_ or _-hanne_:  as in Pascoag, for peske-auke, in Burrilville, R.I., ’the dividing place’ of two branches of Blackstone’s River; and Pesquamscot, in South Kingston, R.I., which (if the name is rightly given) is “at the divided (or cleft) rock,”—­peske-ompsk-ut,—­perhaps some ancient land-mark, on or near the margin of Worden’s Pond.

Noeu-tuk (Noahtuk, Eliot), ‘in the middle of the river,’ may be, as Mr. Judd[14] and others have supposed, the name which has been variously corrupted to Norwottock, Nonotuck, Noatucke, Nawottok, &c.  If so, it probably belonged, originally to one of the necks or peninsulas of meadow, near Northampton,—­such as that at Hockanum, which, by a change in the course of the river at that point, has now become an island.

[Footnote 14:  History of Hadley, pp. 121, 122.]