"Rackensack" (=Arkansas) query

[Mark A Mandel]

On Sat, 2 Feb 2002, Gerald Cohen wrote:

#    I've received the following request about "Rackensack"  from the
#editor of _Ozarks Mountaineer_. Would anyone be able to help?

        [...]

#>>...a few months ago in the "ozarks mountaineer" was the mention
#>>that arkansas at one time was referred to as "rackensack" could you
#>>please give details to this referral?...

I know nothing about the name, but here's an unabashed WAG (wild-ass
guess). It *looks* like a near-anagram of "Arkansas" :
        ARK-AN-SAS
        replace the 2nd S with a 2nd K and shuffle slightly
        RAK-AN-SAK
 -- which might have originated either as an actual
misreading/misspeaking of the name or as a mock mistake of the kind a
proverbial uneducated "hillbilly" might make. Again, this is pure
uninformed speculation.

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguist at Large