96 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Grecnlcaf and W-tn milo liavo obviously added a final locative OOK, (luitc niissinfi; 

 from the earlier form, in this, doubtless, treating the ancient word PEM-TE-GOO-AT 

 as a unit, and adtlinp; thereto a familiar modern ending to show that it applied to a 

 place. Or, possibh', this termination was TOOK, the modern form of the word 

 for RIVER, repeated on the same principle. 



Thus much for the termination; as to the prefix PEHEM, that seems equally 

 clear, for, taking Springer's meaning of the word as a clue, we find in Rasle's 

 Didionarij (551, 561), that the closely-allied Abnaki has the root BAËM, or 

 BAÏÉM, which means LARGER or VERY LARGE; and this meaning, in view 

 of the fact that the name in question applies only to the lower, tidal, broader, part 

 of the Penobscot, seems undoubtedly correct, especially as it is in full harmony 

 with the meanings given by Springer and Vetromile. All of the data fit togetlier 

 perfectly, therefore, and it seems quite clear that the word PEHEM-TE-GOO-ÂT 

 was the aboriginal Indian name for the broad lower part of the Penobscot. This 

 part, by the way, to which the name applied, doubtless extended to below Castine, 

 for this is implied in Springer's statement, while moreover it agrees with the early 

 French usuage, as shown by the maps. Father Biard also, makes the Chibouctous, 

 that is, Castine River, empty into the Pentegcët {op. cit. Il, 49). Father Vetromile 

 was therefore partly but not wholly right in his localization of the word, restricting 

 it overmuch. lurthermore, a full confirmation of this meaning and application 

 of the name comes from another and quite independent source. In -a series of 

 articles by S. A. Wilder dealing with the history of Pembroke Maine, publi-shed in 

 the Eastport Sentinel, in December, 1891, are a good many notes showing a close 

 and accurate knowledge of the Indian place-names of that region, all of them 

 obtained, without doubt, by the writer direct from the Passamaquoddy Indians 

 still resident in that vicinity. Among these names is given BOAMTUQUET, as 

 applied to the lower course of the Pembroke River where it merges into the Bay, 

 with the meaning BROAD WATERS. Both the spelling and the meaning here 

 assigned to this word, by the way, agree so closely with those given by Father 

 Vetromile, above cited, for the lower Penobscot, as to suggest that Mr. Wilder was 

 influenced by Vetromile's work in writing down the word and the meaning, though 

 there is every evidence in his papers that he obtained his names for himself for his 

 own localities directly from the Indians. This word is evidently identical in form, 

 meaning, and application, with our word PEHEMTEGOOÀT, and its double occur- 

 rence implies that the word was a descriptive term applied by the Indians to the 

 lower parts of large rivers where they broaden out into baj's at their mouths. If 

 thus an ancient general descriptive term, we can see why the modern Indians would 

 add OOK or TOOK to localize it in a particular place. 



Other Explanations of the word Pentagoet. — In l'Abbé Maurault's 

 Histoire des Ahenakis (page 5), this word is made equivalent to POTEGSIT, 

 meaning PLACE IN A RIVER WHERE THERE ARE RAPIDS ("endroit d'une 

 rivière où il y a des rapides"), derived from the same roots as the PANNTEKS of 

 Ra.sle, meaning RAPID or WATERFALL {Ahnaki Dictionary, 518) with a locative 

 suffix IT or IK meaning place. But this explanation is rendered impossible by the 

 fact that it was to the tidal part of the river, where no rapids or waterfalls exist, 

 that the name PENTAGOET was applied; and l'Abbé Maurault's explanation is 

 obviously only a guess based on a resemblance of words. Another and very different 

 explanation was introduced by l'Abbé Laverdière in his edition of Champlain (page 

 179) where he suggests that the word is derived from PEMETIGOITEK, meaning 

 the people of Pl'^MIHTCJ, which latter, as Father Biard tells us, was the Indian 

 name of Mount Desert Island. But this again is a pure guess without the slightest 



