Mohican or Schaghticoke place names are affixed to locations throughout Berkshire and Litchfield counties. “Among them are Housatonic (meaning “over the mountain”), Pontoosuc (“place of the falls”), Larrywaug (“Larry’s place”), Naumkeag (“fish place”), Mahkeenac (“large place” as in “Great Pond”), Hoosic (“kettle”), Taconic (“place of trees” or “forest”), Wyantenuck (“place of the bend in the river”), and personal names like Konkapot, Umpachene, and Unkamet,” according to historian Lion G. Miles. “All these names appear in early documents.”

Some names are not easily translated, according to anthropologist David P. McAllester. “Spellings in Colonial times were individualistic at best,” he said, “and, when it came to rendering Indian names, were almost as varied as the number of people who tried to write the name down. Pophnehonmukwok, one of the names of our well‐iknown Mahican chief, Konkapot, has so many recorded spellings that it requires an entire index card in the Massachusetts State Library in Boston to list them all.” He gave examples of spellings of Mohican: Muhheakunnuck, Muhheakunneuw, Muhhekunneyuk, Mahikanders, Maikans, Mihikana, Nhikana, Hikanagi, Maingan or Mahiganiouetch.

Some Indian‐sounding names were invented, however.

A 19th century book, Taghconic: The Romance and Beauty of the Hills by “Godfrey Greylock” (Pittsfield’s Joseph E.A. Smith), included purported Indian names with no earlier documentary source, including Wahconah, Onota, Nessacus, Miahcomo and Yonnougah — though a Wahconah flouring mill was active in Pittsfield in 1868. The name Mahaiwe first appeared in the writings of William Cullen Bryant in 1844 and probably has no Mohican origin, according to Miles — though the Mahaiwe National Bank incorporated in Great Barrington in 1847.

•   Douglas‐Lithgow, R.A. Native American Place Names in Massachusetts. Bedford, Mass. Applewood Books. (Originally part of Indian Place and Proper Names of New England, 1909).

•   Miles, Lion G., “The Mohican Indian Language,” Now & Then, Local History Museum & Archives, Stockbridge Library, November 2012.

•   McAllester, David P., Indian Notes, “Names,” Monterey News, July 1987.

•   Greylock, Godfrey (J.E.A. Smith). Taghconic: The Romance and Beauty of the Hills. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1879.