98 THE R(~»YAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



cliangeability of the sounds of M and B in tliese Indian languages, could as well be 

 written PE-NOOP-SKE-OGK), and also applies it definitely to the falls at Oldtown, 

 a prominent place about twelve miles above Bangor {op. cit., 121) which is below 

 head of tide. In his localization of the name at or near Oldtown, Greenleaf is con- 

 firmed by an abundance of other authority. Thus Hubbard ^ in his Woods and Lakes 

 of Maine, 208, gives PA^NAUMBSKEK on Indian authority as the name of some 

 definite point on the river, though without further identification, while Professor 

 J. Dyneley Prince, one of the best of authorities upon these Indians, makes the 

 aboriginal form of the name PAWANOBSKEK (Query', PANAWOBSKEK?), 

 and applies it to Oldtown, Maine, the headcjuarters of the Penobscot tribe {American 

 Anthropologist, XII, 1910, 201. This localization is confirmed by a plate in Father 

 Vetromilc's book {op. cit. opposite page 95) which applies the name PENAUBSKET 

 to the Oldtown Indian village. Further, there can hardly be any question that it 

 was this village to which Father Rasle in his Abnaki Dictionary (page 542) gave the 

 name PANNA8ANBSKEK (the N being an almost silent nasal sound), or, as we 

 would write it PANAWABSKEK; but if any doubt remained it would be removed 

 by the remarkable De Rozier map of 1699 (these Transactions, XII, 1906, ii, 60), 

 for I find that the somewhat obscure original of that map has the name PANA8MSKE 

 (not PANI8IN8KE, as printed), or as we would write it, PANAWOBSKE (M and 

 B being interchangeable, and 8 being 00 or AVO), and applied to a village in the 

 position of Oldtown. It was this map I have no doubt, which was the original of 

 the name PANAOUNKÉ on Bellin's map of 1744, (obviously misprinted, chiefly 

 by the omission of the S) a word which appears later on maps as LAC PANAOUNKÉ 

 (D'Anville's map of 1755), and still further corrupted to PANOUKE (Mitchell's 

 map of 1755). Further, in this testimony as to the original location of Penobscot 

 as a village, it is interesting to observe that the very curious melange of fact and 

 fiction called The description of the Coxmtrey of Mawooshen (the coast of Maine), 

 under date of 1623 speaks of a certain river and adds "upon this River there is a 

 Towne named Panobscot " {Purchas His Pilgrimes, edition of 1906, 401-2), though 

 this latter item is not here mentioned as authority, so much as curious coincidence. 

 Furthermore the name APANAWAPESKE applied in that work to a river of this 

 region seems clearly a form of this same word. Finally we have also testimony of 

 the first importance in the Report of the Surveyor Chadwick, of 1764, who makes 

 Penobscot or Isle of Penobskeag identical with the Indian Settlement on the Island 

 at Oldtown {Bangor Historical Magazine, IV, 1889, 143). Taking all the evidence to- 

 gether, tlierefore, it seems clear that the aboriginal form of the name Penobscot 

 applied to a locality on the river, and apparently specifically to the Indian village at 

 Oldtown, and that the aboriginal form of the name, thus recorded variously as 

 PE-NOOM'-SKE-OOK, PAWANOBSKEK, PANNAUMBSKEK, PENAUBSKET, 

 PANAWABSKEK, PANAWOBSKE, and APANAWAPESKE must have 

 been, especially in light of additional facts given below, something very close to 

 PAN-A-WOPSK-EK, which we may adopt as a kind of standard of the aboriginal 

 form of the word. It was accented, I take it, on the syllable before the last. 



But an Indian village has always a reason for its name, and we turn to seek 

 the explanation of that of PANAWOPSKEK. First we note the meanings assigned 

 to the word. Springer makes it mean ROCKY RIVER, Greenleaf, ROCKY FALLS, 

 in their works alwvo cited, while several independent meanings mentioned below, 

 while differing in regard to the remainder of the word, agree in the presence of a root 

 meaning ROCK or ROCKY. With this help it is easy to explain the latter part 

 of the name, for the root WOPSK is the common word in the language of these 

 Indians to signify ROCKS, while the final EK or ET is the usual locative suffix 



