[ganong] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 101 



rock, or one that is larger at the top tlian at the bottom," though this hardly has 

 any connection with the explanation of this word. The same general idea seems 

 present in Gatschet's interpretation, that PANAWAMPSICEK means "where the 

 conical rocks are", (National Geographic Magazine, VIII., 1897, 20) , though he 

 does not explain farther. And the same roots evidently underlie the explanation of 

 the Indian Laurent, in his excellent httle book, New Familiar Abenakis and English 

 Dialogues, 218, when he suggests a possible origin from PENAPSKA.K, meaning 

 THE STEEP ROCKY PLACE, but without any attempt to locate the word or 

 explain its applicability. 



Other explanations involving the correct explanation of WOPSK-EK, but 

 with various methods of explaining the first root, have also been given. Thus, 

 Father Vetromile makes the word PENAUBSKET, meaning IT FLOWS ON 

 ROCKS, but gives no clue to the identity of the first root {op. cit. 48) ; but in another 

 place (page 24) he explains Father Rasle's form of the word as meaning IT FORKS 

 ON THE WHITE ROCKS, again mthout explanation of roots or locahty. But 

 I have already expressed my opinion of this book on an earlier page (15). In so 

 far as the present subject is concerned it is almost immatched for the amount of 

 error it manages to compress into a brief space, and in the tone of authoritative 

 finality with which it promulgates it. With this group of explanations belongs 

 also Laurent's preferred derivation from PEMAPSIvAK, meaning THE ROCKY 

 PLACE, AMONG THE ROCKS {op. cit. 218). 



A third type of explanation liinges around the resemblance between the English 

 form of the name PENOBSCOT and the Indian root PENOBS, which means A 

 STONE. Thus, Father Rasle gives for the closely-aUied Abnaki, PNAPESK8 {AbnaM 

 Dictionary, 506), and Chamberlain gives for the equally closely allied MaUseet PU- 

 NAP'SKW {MaUseet Vocabulary, 48). The word differs from WOPSK, as I happen 

 to know, in applying not to ledges but to loose stones, Uke small boulders and cobble- 

 stones. The first apphcation of this root to the explanation of PENOBSCOT 

 appears to be the PENOBS-KEAG of Williamson's History of Maine, of 1832 

 (I, 512) which makes it mean ROCK LAND, while Lorenzo Sabine made the same 

 roots mean THE PLACE OF ROCKS {Christian Examiner, for 1852). Thoreau gave 

 the meaning as ROCKY RIVER in 1858 {The Maine Woods, 145, 324). Ballard 

 gives the same derivation as a second choice, making it equivalent to ROCKLAND, 

 but applying to the region of Castine {op. cit. 256), but Ballard's authority on these 

 matters has no value. L'Abbé Maurault {op. cit. iv, 5), makes it mean THE LAND 

 WHICH IS COVERED WITH ROCKS ("la terre qui est couverte de pierre"). 

 Wheeler, in his History of Castine, 1875, 14, follows WilUamson in substance, connect- 

 ing the name with the rocky shores of the river, while the same general explanation 

 has the support of no less an authority than J. Dyneley Prince, who interprets it as 

 A ROCKY TERRITORY {American Anthropologist, XI, 1909, 649), though appar- 

 ently without special consideration. This explanation is the popular one, and found 

 in numerous general works and books of travel, from Lanman's Adventures, of 1856 

 (I, 330), down to the present day, and is now widely current. In none of these 

 cases, however, is any careful analysis in light of the historical development of the 

 word, and its precise localization, undertaken; and the explanations obviously repre- 

 sent nothing more than attempts to match up the modern familiarized form of 

 the name with such modern Indian words as happen to resemble it most closely in 

 aspect. The difficulty with the explanation based on PENOPS is two-fold, — first, it 

 ignores the aboriginal form of the name, which is quite different, and assumes as 

 correct the modem corrupted English form, and second, it is in no manner distinc- 

 tive, for like the root WOPSK, PENOBS is applicable equally well to all the 

 rivers of all the coast of Maine, which is rocky or stony throughout, "nothing, 



