Moreover, the English found the native languages very difficult. The word “skunk,” for instance, began as the uneasy “segankw”; “squash,” much more alarmingly, was “asquutasquash”; “raccoon” was one of many which originally had several native names: “rahaugcum,” “raugroughcum,” “arocoune,” “arathkone,” “aroughcum” and “rarowcun.” Perhaps the struggle to reproduce the native pronunciation was just too much and they settled for raccoon.
