Sounds a bit like Walter Brennan saying tarnation, there seems to be a lot of near rude exclamations about, and I think that damnation may be the root of some of these words that end in nation. Gosh darn! is another one used instead of God damn! Also there seems to be a fashion for made up words in a lot of Irish songs, like contagious used instead of contiguous in A Sailor Courted a Farmers Daughter.I suspect that Irish Gaelic may also be at the root of some of these word elisions.
John