402 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



sistence of a letter which was, I think, originally in the word NAMAGW, making it 

 NAMASGW, because it seems perfectly clear that NAMAGW involves the very 

 common root NAMES meaning FISH, with some qualifying addition expressed by 

 the GW. Hubbard, in his IVoods and Lakes of Maine, 204, states that the Penobscot 

 Indians use NAMES for the Lake Trout, though probably he failed to catch an ad- 

 ditional syllable. Upon the supposition that the S was originally in the word, 

 though dropped by the modern Indians, then some error of transcription of M and 

 N, common in old records, with the retention of both the GW and KO sounds in the 

 first form, makes both MAMISCOUCANTE AND NANSAKANTI equivalent to 

 NAMAKONTI, the form of Laurent, from which runs as unbroken sequence to our 

 MEGANTIC. 



Two other explanations of the word have been published. Father Maurault, 

 in his well-known work Histoire des Abenakis, 1866, vi, derives it from NAMESOK- 

 ÂNJIK, which word (as his usage in the case of Passamaquoddy shows, as later 

 noted, page 418), is equivalent ot NAMESOKANTIK,and he makes it mean FISH- 

 ING PLACE ("lieu ou se tiennent les poissons"), evidently taking it to involve 

 NAMES, the word for FISH above mentioned. Laurent's authority, however, and 

 other attendant circumstances, would seem to make it plain that the name of the 

 particular fîsh, NAMEGW (or NAMESGW ?) is contained in the word as noted. 

 Again Father Lacombe in his list of Place-names in his Dictionnaire des Cris, 708, 

 derives the word from MISÂTTIK, meaning THICK WOODS ("gros bois"); but 

 like most other names in that list, this interpretation represents merely a guess at the 

 Crée roots which happen to come nearest to the modern printed form of the word 

 MEGANTIC, of a very different dialect, and is quite without value. 



MENAQUADIK. The Maliseet name for Reardons Island, on the River 

 Saint John in New Brunswick, at the mouth of Bulls Creek a little below Woodstock. 

 It was thus given me by Newell Paul, one of the most reliable of the Maliseets, in the 

 form MEN-HOC-QUA'-DIK, with the meaning PLACE FOR WIGWAM POLES 

 {these Transactions, II, 1896, ii, 265). The latter part of the word is clearly our 

 familiar combination -A-KA'DI-K, already explained (page 380). The former, 

 however, I have not been able to identify with certainty; possibly it is connected with 

 some word of which the Micmac MËNÂPSEÂ', meaning TO HUNT FOR WIGWAM 

 POLES, is the Micmac representative (Rand, English- Micmac Dictionary, 199). 

 The word must have further study, but its membership in our -ACADIE series is 

 clear. 



MESAKANTE. The former Abenaki name (in simplified form) of Farmington 

 Falls, on the Sandy River, a branch of the Kennebec from the west, in Maine. It is spelled 

 MEESEE CONTEE, and given the meaning HERRING PLACE, as local tradition, 

 in an account of the Sandy River settlements by Wm. Allen, in the Collections of the 

 Maine Historical Society, IV, 1856, 31, although Willis, in the same volume, 105, has 

 MEESUCONTU. There would seem to be no doubt that this is the ANMES8K- 

 KANTTI (the N a partly silent nasal and the 8 standing for OUI) of Father Rasle's 

 Abnaki Dictionary, 493, for the name occurs as ANMISS8KANTI in an Indian 

 treaty of 1721 (in Shea's translation of Charlevoix's Histoire, V, 273), and is given 

 as AMASAGUANTEG in John Gyles' list of Indian settlements of 1726 {Col- 

 lections, above cited. III, 1853, 327). The word has attracted the attention of 

 Trumbull, who, in his well-known work on Algonkin names, has explained it in a 

 way that leaves little to be said, deriving it from Abnaki ANMES8AK- meaning 

 "literally 'small fishes,' but appropriated to fish of the herring tribe, including 

 alewives," together with the familiar -KANTTI, (the Abnaki equivalent of our 

 Micmac —KA'DI, as explained on page 377), meaning PLENTY, thus making the 

 word mean WHERE THERE IS PLENTY OF ALEWIVES OR HERRINGS 



