[GANONG] _ INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 195 
SKUDAPSKANIGAN, the aboriginal Indian name of Upper, or Second, Falls 
on the Magaguadavic River in New Brunswick, as shown by the highly authoritative 
diary of the survey of the river in 1797 by Dougal Campbell, published with notes in 
the Collections of the New Brunswick Historical Society, III, 1909, 178. The word in- 
volves I believe, the roots SKUT, meaning FIRE, the root WAPSK, meaning ROCKS 
and the root OO-NE-GAN, meaning PORTAGE, that is SKUT-WAPSK-OONEGAN 
meaning BURNT-ROCKS-PORTAGE, or a portage over rocks made bare by fire, 
in description of the bare ledges over which the portage passed around the falls. 
This method of naming falls from some peculiarity of the portage around them is 
found elsewhere and was perfectly natural. Whether, however, my interpretation 
of the first root is correct or not, the remaining two, and especially the OO-NE-GAN, 
seem unmistakable. 
SQUIDAPSKUNEGANISSIS, the aboriginal Indian name for McDougall’s 
falls on the Magaguadavic River as named in the Campbell Diary and maps (op. cit. 
180). The word appears to me simply another spelling of the preceding with the 
diminutive suffix SIS, meaning LITTLE, an entirely natural name for the place in 
association with the Fall below. 
MALECUNIGANISS, the aboriginal name for Little Falls on the Magagua- 
davie River, as named in the Campbell Diary and maps (op. cit. 182). The root 
OO-NE-GAN in the dimunitive form seems perfectly plain, though the remainder I 
cannot explain unless it involves the equivalent of the Micmac root MALIG, mean- 
ing WINDING (Rand, Reader, 103), that is, LITTLE WINDING PORTAGE, 
referring to a winding portage path. 
It is probable that MERRICONEAG, given by Ballard (Report of the United 
States Coast Survey for 1868, 253) as the name of a portage across Harpswell 
Peninsula in Maine, not far from Winnegance above-mentioned, is the same word 
with the usual substitution of R for L and omission of the diminutive. Ballard 
interprets the ONEAG as OONEGAN, but gives the prefix as MERRU, swift, upon 
wholly inadequate authority, however. This paper of Ballard’s, by the way, is 
quite untrustworthy as an authority upon its subject, and is so erroneous in most 
of its derivations as to approach the absurd. 
KETEPSKONEGAN, given as KETEPSKONEGAN, the aboriginal Penobscot 
name for falls and dead water on the West Branch of the Penobscot, by Hubbard, in 
his Woods and Lakes of Maine, 197. Hubbard derives the name from roots KAT 
(KEHT or K’T), meaning BIG, PESKw meaning ROCK or LEDGE, and wNI’GAN, 
CARRY (i.e. PORTAGE), the word thus meaning BIG LEDGE CARRY. It seems 
to me more probable, however, that the name will be found to represent, KAT 
meaning BIG, WAPSK, meaning ROCKS, and OONEGAN, meaning PORTAGE, 
the word thus meaning BIG ROCKS PORTAGE. At all events the termination 
OONEGAN is certain. It is, of course, possible that this word is really identical 
with Skudapskanigan discussed above. 
WAPSEDNEGAN, given on Colby’s Atlas of Washington County, Maine, as the 
name for a little brook entering the St. Croix River from the west at Spragues Falls, is 
probably only a corruption of WAPS-OONEGAN, meaning ROCK PORTAGE, 
or PORTAGE OVER ROCKS, in contradistinction from one through woods. 
This would be the aboriginal name for Spragues Falls. 
NEGUNISSIS, the aboriginal Penobscot name of a “short falls and portage,” on 
the West Branch of Penobscot, according to Greenleaf’s early list of Maine Place 
names (Moses Greenleaf, Maine’s First Map-maker, 123).The form of the word in 
Sec. II., 1912. 13. 
