Paumanok

English Etymology From an en alg name for the area. First recorded on May 3, 1639, in a deed between Lion Gardiner and "Yovawan, Sachem of Pommanocc". Thereafter variously spelled Pamunke (1648), Pammanack (1656), Pawmanack (1658), Paumanuck and Paumanche (1659), and Pommanock (1665),"The Aboriginal terms for Long Island", The Archaeologist (1894), volume 2, page 175 and later Paumanack and Pomonok (preserved as the name of a neighborhood in Flushing in Queens); and then popularized in the spelling Paumanok by Walt Whitman.Robert S. Grumet, Manhattan to Minisink: American Indian Place Names of Greater New York and Vicinity (2013, University of Oklahoma Press, 9780806189130), page 227William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States (2004), page 373 The precise origin of the name is not entirely clear, but the source language has been suggested to be Lenape (umu -),Joan D. Berbrich, Three Voices from Paumanok (1969), page 192 and the first element has been suggested to be related to wam pummunnum s/he gives away; offers, devotes, wam paumpaummunum s/he offers it habitually or by custom, and xnt pummenum pummenum- contribute, with the final element probably a locative, making the name "land of tribute" (which had to pay tribute, or where wampum shells for paying tribute were obtained).Evan T. Pritchard, Native New Yorkers (2019), chapter 16 Proper noun en poetic Long Island. References