100 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



there, as a place suitable to trade, and with this view the invariable expression 

 RIVER OF PENOBSCOTT in the Popham Narrative is consistent. The familiari- 

 zation of the Indian PANA\\'OPSKEK into the shorter PENOBSCOT with its 

 more familiar sounds follows the usual method. 



There is one other point by the way, deserving mention in this connection. 

 The Falls at Oldtown not only exhibit a sudden transition to a quiet basin above, 

 but thej' stand at the head of the narrower more rocky lower Penobscot, in a hillier 

 countrj-, while immediately above them begins not only a wider quieter river but a 

 far more open country; and it is possible that our word PANAWOPSKEK involves 

 some recognition of this larger, as well as the more limited, topographical transition. 



Thus the roots PAN and WOPSK-EK find explanation ; as to the A of the second 

 syllable of our Indian form PAN-A-WOPSK-EK, that I take to be simply separative, 

 for ease of pronunciation between syllables, and without special meaning, as occurs 

 in a great many Indian words, noted earlier in this series. It may, however, represent 

 a root expressive of the relation of the OPENING and the ROCKS, perhaps "above." 

 But the solution of this point awaits the labours of a better Indian philologist than 

 I am. (Compare the addend Jm on page 106, later). 



Other explanations of the word Penobscot. — Several of these have been 

 given, the most important of which involve the word FALL in some form or other. 

 Thus Greenleaf makes the word mean ROCKY FALLS {op. cit. 121). At first 

 thought one is inclined to find in Greenleaf's explanation, or rather in that of his 

 Indian informant, a confusion between the word WOPSK meaning ROCK, and the 

 very similar KOPSK meaning WATERFALL; but the latter root appears not to 

 occur in Penobscot Indian though conmion in Micmac, and besides it would leave 

 Greenleaf without any root for his word ROCKY. The real root of his explanation 

 was evidently PANN of Father Rasle's PANNTEK8, meaning RAPID, or WATER- 

 FALL {Abnaki Dictionanj, 518) together with WOPSK-EK meaning ROCK PLACE. 

 This same derivation, apparently taken from Greenleaf, although giving a somewhat 

 different form to the Indian word, is adopted by Ballard (Report of the United States 

 Coast Survey, 1868, 256). It is the same major root, by the way, which is involved 

 in l'Abbé Maurault's explanation of POTEGOUIT already noticed above (page 16). 

 But this view seems to me wholly untenable for two reasons, first, the 

 root PANN in the meaning of WATERFALL seems inseparable from the second 

 part of the word TEK8, and therefore cannot mean WATERFALL by itself or in 

 any other combination (it appears primarily to mean "noise", but WATERFALL 

 only when used in conjunction with TEK8) ; and second, the appellation ROCKY 

 FALLS is not nearly distinctive enough for this important locality, since it is equally 

 descriptive of a dozen places along the Penobscot, whereas the derivation of the 

 word from PAN, meaning OPEN describes a distinctive and unique feature. An 

 interpretation identical with Greenleaf's as to roots, but with these differently 

 interpreted, is given by Trumbull, who derives it from the same root PANN of 

 Rasle's P.\i\[NTEK8, alreadj'^ noted, with a root meaning ROCK, and makes the 

 word mean, AT THE FALL OF THE ROCK, or AT THE DESCENDING ROCK, 

 but without application to any particular place or any further evidence {Collections 

 of the Connecticut Historical Society, II, 19). This derivation is adopted by Shea, 

 in his Charlevoix, V, 277 and by Mr. Slafter in the Prince Society's Voyages of 

 Champlain I, 42. But Trumbull, while the highest authority on the language of 

 the Massachusetts and Connecticut Indians, had no first hand knowledge of Penob- 

 scot, and his explanation is evidently based merely on resemblances in roots without 

 any attempt to connect the words with their history or with the country. Hubbard 

 mentions in this connection {op. cit. 208), that PA^NAUMBSK means "A sloping 



