Also 7 sunke, 8 sunk. [N. American Indian; sunck squaw app. represents Natick sonksq, sonkusq queen, mistress (f. songhuau he overcomes, has the mastery) = Narragansett saunks, pl. sauncksquuaog (Roger Williams).] In full sunck squaw: The female chief or queen of an American Indian tribe.
1676. Connect. Col. Rec. (1852), II. 458. That ould peice of venum, Sunck squaw Magnus.
1677. Hubbard, Indian Wars, I. 105. The same Indians … and their Sunke Squaw, or chief Woman of that Indian Plantation.
1797. J. Trumbull, Hist. Connect., I. 347. The six Narraganset sachems, and the sunk squaw or old queen of Narraganset.
1804. J. Haughton, in, Mass. Hist. Coll., IX. 83, note. Awaking one night,… and finding his sunck (queen) lying near another Indian, he … took his knife, and cut three strokes on each of her cheeks.
