[ganong] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 99 



making the word apply to a PLACE. This much seems perfectly clear. But what of 

 the prefix PAN? The clue to this is given, I believe, by Rand in his Reader, 96, when 

 he derives Penobscot from BANOCOPSKËK, meaning OPENING OUT AMONG 

 ROCKS, making PAN identical with PAN of PENNIAC earlier discussed (p. 12: 

 compare also the several words invo'.virg BAN in his Micmac-English Dictionnry, 

 31 and 180). It is perfectty true that Rand is explaining a Penobscot word from 

 Micmac roots, but it is a fact that while Micmac and Penobscot differ much, a great 

 many of their place-nama roots are identical, as is natural from the fact that both 

 are Algonquian languages. Furthermore, there is very good evidence that the 

 root PAN means OPEN in Penobscot, because it occurs in this sense in the closely 

 related Abnaki, as Father Rasle shows in his Dictionary, in the case of PANN as a 

 root in several words meaning TO OPEN (op. cit., under Ouvrir on page 496 and 

 under Porte on page 511). The word PANAWOPSKEK would therefore seem to 

 mean a place that opens out in relation to rocks. This is confirmed, independently, 

 by a note in Hubbard's Wood and Lakes of Maine, 208, which gives on good Indian, 

 authority the meaning "there are ledges on each bank of a river, just below them the 

 river widens considerably." Our inquiry then becomes centered in this, what is 

 there about the site or surroundings of the old Indian settlement at Oldtown which 

 makes appropriate the expression "opening out" in relation to rocks? To this 

 subject I have given careful study, not only through a recent personal visit to refresh 

 myimemory of the place but also through aid of another deeply interested student 

 of these affairs, who knows the Penobscot region most intimately and appreciatively 

 both as voyageur and author, Mrs. Fannie H. Eckstorm, of Brewer. The facts 

 actually are these, that to one ascending the Penobscot by water, in the manner of 

 aboriginal days, the river above head of tide presents a valley of rather uniform 

 width and usually high banks, often stony or rocky, with occasional rapids or falls, 

 up to Oldtown ; here the stream is obstructed by extensive falls and rapids in a very 

 broken rock-walled and ledge channel, the whole forming the most important and 

 striking falls and ledges on the lower Penobscot. Immediately above the fall, the 

 valley opens out in a quiet basin, spreading away to divide around a pleasant sloping 

 island, on which is situated the old, and present, Indian village of Oldtown. Above 

 this island the country is open and the valley walls low, and the river flows more 

 smoothly, becoming indeed, a few miles higher, almost lake like, and thus continuing 

 for several miles. This place, indeed, is shown as the lake named L. Panaounké, men- 

 tioned above, on French maps. The ROCKS or ROCKY PLACE, described by the 

 root WOPSKEK would therefore appear to be the prominent ledges at the Oldtown 

 Falls, and the OPENING OUT described by the root PAN, would be the quiet 

 expansion beginning above those Falls. The arrangement is indeed very similar to 

 that described by the root PAN or BAN in the Micmac words BANOOK, above cited 

 (page 13), describing the opening out of a river into a lake as one ascends the stream, 

 for all Indian river nomenclature was given with reference to the ascent of the stream. 

 It is similar also to that opening in the valley of the Nashwaak River where the 

 Penniac enters (page 12). On this interpretation the word would mean OPENING 

 OUT-(OF)-THE ROCKS-PLACE, or, more generally AT THE PLACE WHERE 

 THE ROCKS OPEN OUT. Thus the name would be primarily descriptive of the 

 opening in the river, and became secondarily applied to the Indian settlement at 

 that point, — a mode of village nomenclature of which abundant examples exist, 

 e.g. Aucpac, on the Saint John, (later to he discussed in this .series), which is primarily 

 the name of a region, but secondarily the name of its principal Indian village. I 

 take it the first English users of the name, those of the Popham expedition, caught 

 the word from the Indians in connection with their mention of an Indian village 



