[ganong] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 83 



As to its meaning, the Indians are also in agreement. Newell Paul, my best 

 Maliseet informant, told me (I cite my notes made at the time), that it means SO 

 NARROW AND RUNS DEEP .... ANYTHING THAT COMES IN NARROW 

 AND RUNS DEEP; Jim Paul gave me WHERE COMES INTO RIVER HIGH 

 AND NARROW; Mitchel La Porte gave NARROWS BETWEEN LEDGES; and 

 Gabe Acquin NARROW, which latter meaning was confirmed independently by 

 the late Edward Jack who was well versed in these matters. With this information 

 to aid, it is easy to separate the name into its component roots, which are evidently 

 three. First is PÔK, which means NARROWS, in precisely the sense in which 

 that w^ord is used as a geographical term by all the white residents of this region at 

 this day, viz., a constriction in a watercourse, especially with rocky banks or 

 walls, and still more distinctively if the walls are of the post-glacial vertical ledge 

 sort, with rough ledge bottoms often including falls. These latter are the NAR- 

 ROWS par excellence of New Brunswick, precisely the feature called geographically 

 a GORGE; and such as the typical PÔK of the Maliseets. The same root occurs 

 also in Micmac, though perhaps with a more general meaning, and sounded rather 

 like POOK, as attested by several words cited below, and also by Rand's POOGWAK, 

 meaning NARROW or A NARROW PLACE IN A RIVER {Micmac-English 

 Dictionary, 142). I do not find it in this sense in Penobscot or Abnaki, though I 

 take it the root is identical with PS''K in combinations meaning "half the size" as 

 given in Father Rasle's Abnaki Didioriary (561), and it recalls likewise the second 

 root PEK, or BEK, of the word KEBEK which in Micmac has the meaning of 

 NARROWS, and gave origin, it seem certain, to the place-name Quebec (Rand, 

 English-Micmac Dictionary, 177). 



The second root is WE, or, in view of the fact that the K is ob\dously the com- 

 mon locative suffix making the word apply to a place, is WE-0. The late A. S. 

 Gatschet of Washington, who had made a study of the Penobscot and Passama- 

 quoddy dialects, wrote me in 1898 in connection with this very word, that YAK, 

 lAK, HAK, that is YA, lA, HA without the locative K, describes the RUN OF 

 WATERS, and means also TO DRIP. Apparently the root is related to the Micmac 

 JOOIK, meaning TO POUR or FLOW^ SWIFTLY, as discussed earlier under 

 the word Nepisiguit {these Transactions, VI, 1913, ii, 182) and identical with the 

 WEA of STEWIACKE discussed below (page 8). It seems also plain that it is 

 identical with the root Ï8I, or as we would write it EE-OO-EE (the 8 representing 

 the sound of 00) which is part of NA" 181 meaning the lower part ("le bas") of a 

 river, in the allied Abnaki as given by Father Rasle (op. dt. 523, 558, 561). Taking 

 all the evidence together therefore, this root WE-0 seems clearly to refer to the 

 running out or emptying of waters. Then as the final K is obviously the locative, 

 the entire word would be PÔK-WÈ'Ô-K, meaning literally NAROWS-RUNS OUT- 

 PLACE, or in more general terms, THE RIVER THAT RUNS OUT THROUGH 

 NARROWS. There is not the least doubt, I believe, as to the correctness of this 

 interpretation. It is not only in harmony with the explanations given by the 

 Indians, but is in perfect descriptive agreement with the most remarkable feature 

 of the river, namely, the lofty narrow rock-walled gorge, or "narrows," through 

 which it pours into the Saint John. 



Other Explanations of the Word. — The earUest explanation I have found 

 is in a brief list of New Brunswick place-names published by A. Gesner, the geologist, 

 in the New Brunswick Courier, Nov. 18, 1837, where it is POKIOCK, meaning, 

 THE FRIGHTFUL RIVER, though in his book New Brunswick, of 1849, he gives 

 (80) PIQUIHOAK, meaning DREADFUL PLACE; and this explanation has been 

 followed in other local literature. "Wliile seemingly far from accurate, I have no 

 question that this meaning is really founded upon the correct one, large additions 



