110 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Desceliers in 1541, or earlier, applied to a locality on the coast. Back 

 of these, we find only a single use of the word, in the narrative of 1539 

 above cited from Ramusio, where it occurs as Norumbega and 

 NuRUMBEGA, and is said to be used for the country by its inhabitants. 

 It seems clear that in some way Alfonse, Gastaldi, Desceliers and the 

 writer of the narrative of 1539 drew from one source in a record then 

 accessible but not known to us. In all probability this was a map, 

 which we may yet hope to discover. 



Thus we are led back to the narrative of 1539 which says that 

 Norumbega was the name of the coutry used by the inhabitants. 

 The statement has an air of finality, but grave difficulties attend its 

 acceptance. 



First, we know that the American Indians did not themselves 

 use names for extensive territories, as the civilized white man does, 

 but only for specific localities having some connection with their 

 lives or interests. Our surviving Indian names for territories were 

 adopted and extended by the whites from more limited geographical 

 features. Furthermore, the acceptance of the statement would 

 detach the word from all connection with, and support from, the 

 Indian roots adduced by Vetromile, Ballard, and Gatschet, for on this 

 basis Norumbega would be a land name, while Nolumbega is one of 

 the most distinctive of water names. If it should be contended that the 

 name really originated in the Penobscot, and was extended to the 

 country by the whites, then two other difficulties arise. On the one 

 hand we discredit the statement itself, which says that the country 

 was thus called by its inhabitants, and on the other, we must explain 

 how, at a time when the contact of the whites with the natives had 

 been of the briefest sort, confined to very hasty voyages in ships 

 along the coast, a local Indian phrase descriptive of Stillwater reaches 

 on rivers had become sufficiently familiar to the whites for application 

 to the country as a whole. There is of course a possibility that some- 

 body's error of understanding caused such a transference, as in case 

 of the word Canada, but the evidence is reasonably clear in the 

 latter case, and purely speculative in the former. It must be remem- 

 bered that not one jot of evidence exists to connect Norumbega of 

 the maps with Nolumbega of the Penobscot Indians except coinci- 

 dence of form; and how little coincidence may mean is shown by 

 the case of Acadia. 



Second, while the statement of 1539 is the first known unquestion- 

 able appearance of the name Norumbega, it has a probable predecessor 

 in earlier and different forms. Thus on the map of H. de Verrazzano, 

 brother of the explorer, of 1529, there appears on the coast a local name 



