[ganong] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 399 



with the meaning GROVE OF ROCK MAPLE. The construction of the word is 

 plain, for the latter part is clearly our familiar -KA'DIK, earlier explained (page 

 380), the possessive A being elided, while the former part is as obviously MAK- 

 WAN, meaning literally SWEET, but used in place names for the places where 

 maple sugar was made and therefore for groves of the rock, or sugar, maple (com- 

 pare Gatschet, National Geographic Magazine, VIII, 1897, 23). Thus the name in 

 full would be MAKWAN-( A)-KA'DIK, meaning literally SUGAR MAPLE- 

 (ITS)-OCCURRENCE PLACE, which is no doubt descriptive. 



Matamiscontis. 



The name of a Stream, with its source Lakes, entering the main Penobscot from 

 the northwest below Mattawamkeag, in Maine. 



The earliest use of the word I have been able to find is in Greenleaf's list of 

 Indian names of 1823, where it has the form MAD-A-MIS-KON-TIS, with the mean- 

 ing YOUNG ALEWIVE STREAM {Moses Greenleaf, Maine's First Mapmaker, 122). 

 Williamson's History of Maine of 1839, I, 67, has MADAMISCONDUS, without 

 explanation. It is MADAM ISCONTIS on Greenleaf's later maps, from which the 

 MADAMISCOUTIS of Wilkinson's fine map of 1859 is evidently misprinted. In 

 later times the form MATAMISCONTIS has come into use. An old local pro- 

 nunciation, as Mrs. Eckstorm tells me, was Methymiscontee or Medamisconty. 



Turning to the analysis of the word, we have Greenleaf's meaning, YOUNG 

 ALEWIVE STREAM, as a guide. The Penobscot name for the Alewive I have not 

 been able as yet to find, but in the closely allied Abnakithe word is ANMS8 (Rasle, Ab- 

 naki Dictionary, 510; the N being a partly silent nasal, and the 8 representing the sound 

 OUI), while the latter part of the word clearly involves the important root -KANTI, 

 the Abnaki equivalent for our familiar Micmac -KA'DI, meaning OCCURRENCE 

 (page 377). Thus the MISCONTI part of the word would represent an abbreviated 

 ANMESUAKANTI, exactly identical with ANMES8KKANTTI, meaning HER- 

 RING ^ALEWIVE) PLACE considered later under MESACONTE (page 402). 

 This leaves for explanation two features of the word, — the preliminary MET or 

 MED, and the final S. As to the MAD or MET, that presents no difficulty_if the 

 statement of Ballard is correct, that the "Indian" word for Alewive is MAHDAMAS 

 {Report of the United States Coast Survey for 1868, 249), but Ballard's statements are 

 all too often unreliable. A very different explanation of MET is given by Trumbull 

 in his work earlier cited (page 391), for he makes the word MET-A°MS8AKKA°TTI, 

 mean "a place where there has been (but is not now) plenty of alewives, or to which 

 they no longer resort," and to explain the source of the idea "has been, but is not 

 now," he cites Father Rasle's MÈTANM8AK, meaning where fish have been to 

 deposit their eggs, but no longer are {Abnaki Dictionary, 510). This explanation, 

 however, seems to me most laboured, and the idea itself quite unnatural in con- 

 nection with a place-name involving a phenomenon, the presence of a certain kind of 

 fish, which must recur year after year. But this matter need not concern us farther, 

 since there is a perfectly simple and natural explanation of this root MET (MED 

 MAD or MAT), for, as will be shown in detail in a later number of this series, it is a 

 somewhat common prefix in the names of steams, where it has the significance of 

 "ending," in the sense of joining with the main stream, and always introduces in the 

 remainder of the word some feature which distinguishes the mouth of the stream. 

 Thus Meduxnakeag (on the Saint John), signifies ending (or joining the Saint John) 

 over falls, and Matawamkeag signifies, I believe, ending or joining the Penobscot 

 over gravel beds. Other examples are Madawaska, Matanacook, Matagoodus, 

 • Madunkeunk, and others later to be considered. Thus the word MATAMISCONTI 



