Sank or San, "stone" (from Assin), and -hikan, "an implement," obviously a flint-stone implement for striking fire, or, as interpreted by Heckewelder, "A fire-lock," and by Zeisberger, "A fire-steel." The French called them Agnic and Agniers, presumably derived from Canienga (Huron, Yanyenge). The Dutch called tJhem Mahakuas, by contraction Maquaas, from Old Algonquian Magkwah (Stockbridge, Mquoh), Bear, "He devours, he eats." As a nation they were Bears, tearing, devouring, eating, enemies w*ho fell into their hands. Bruyas wrote in the Huron dialect, "Okivari, curse (that is Bear) ; Ganniagivari, grand ourse" (grand, glorious, superb, Bear), and in another connection, "It is the name of the

Agniers," the characteristic type of the nation. They were divided in three ruling totemic tribes, the Tortoise (Anozvara), the Bear (Ochquari), and the Wolf (Okzvaho), and several sub-tribes, as the Beaver, the Elk, the Serpent, the Porcupine, and the Fox, as shown by deeds of record, of Which the most frequently met is that of the Beaver. On Van der Donck's map of 1656, the names of four tribal castles are entered : Ca^'enay, Ganagero, Schanatisse, and t' Jo)inoutcgo. In the recently recovered Journal of a trip to the

Roger Williams wrote of the Narraganset Indians in 1643: "I have seen a native go into the woods with his hatchet, carrying a basket of corn with him, strike and sconestwoto metalic together strike astones, tire."' just Father Le do as we Junewith wrote, in 1634: a piece "They of flint and iron or steel. * * That is how they light their fire." The "Metalic stones" spoken of are presumed, by some writers, to have been iron pyrites, as they may have been in some cases, but the national emblem was the flint. '"Sankhicani, the Mohawk's, from Sankhican, a gun-lock." (Heckeweld- €r.) The name appears first on the Carte Figurative of 1614-16, in application to the Indians of northern New Jersey (Delawares), who were, by soine writers, called "The Fire-workers." They seem to have manufactured stone implements by the application of fire.