32 EEY. GEORGE PATTERSON, ETC. 



lanofuage signifying bears, from the totem of their leading clan being the bear. But the 

 Micmacs had an entirely different name for them. They called them the Kwedechs. At 

 all events it is indubitable that they knew the Beothiks by the term Maquajik or red 

 people (from megivek red). Since my paper was published I have again examined intel- 

 ligent men among them, and find that they know about Newfoundland, which they call 

 Mtomcook, and have distinct information about its original inhabitants, whom they agree 

 in designating Maquajik, or, to be more accurate, in the singular, Maquajil, a Red Indian, 

 plural Maqiiajijik, Red Indians. 



1. In regard to the proposed etymology of Beothik as connected with an Eskimo 

 word meaning forefooi of deer, mentioned on page 12-t, I haA^e received the following 

 from the Right Rev. M. F. Howley :— 



" Whatever may be thought of the suggestion of the word it is I, a)id not Mr. J. P. 

 Howley, who must bear the brunt of it. I made the suggestion first, and it is not so void 

 of verisimilitude as you seem to think. The train of reasoning is this. It is most pro- 

 bable that the white men adopted the name for these red men which they heard given to 

 them by the Micmacs. The Micmacs were the go-betweens, the agents of the white men 

 in dealing with the Indians — for their destruction. The Micmacs called them beothuc or 

 deerfooted, on account of their swiftness of foot — deerfoot Indians. And as the deer's foot 

 is black, they were afterwards called by a sort of metonymy Blackfoot, which is only a 

 translation of Beothuc. It is supposed (and this is plainly shown on Shanaudithit's 

 drawing) that the remnant of them fled to Labrador, and a harbour there is called Penware, 

 a corruption or provincial pronirnciation of Pied/ioir, where probably they made a settle- 

 ment. They never called themselves Beothuc, but Sliawantharot." 



I stand corrected as to the tone of my remark, but I am not convinced by Mr. H.'s 

 arguments. His statements are mainly conjectural, and do not seem to be sustained by 

 the facts of the case. 1. There is no evidence that the Micmacs applied the term Beothuc 

 to the Red Indians. On the contrary we know that their name for them is, and we have 

 reason to believe always has been, Maquajik. 2. It is not the word in Micmac for black or 

 blackfoot. 3. Mr. Leigh, in his vocabulary taken down from Mary March, and McCormack, 

 and those who hid intercourse with Shauaudithit, all give the word, though varying in 

 the spelling of it, as their tribal name. 4. I at first supposed it possible that a remnant 

 of this people had escaped to Labrador, but a careful examination of the papers connected 

 with Shanandithit, now in the St. Johns museum, convinced me that this was impossible. 



