[GANONG] INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE 197 
ever, another form, which obviously had arisen independently, was coming into use, 
for Bishop Plessis, who passed this way in 1812, uses the form WAGHENSIS in his 
Journal (Le Foyer Canadien, 1865, 267). This name was taken without doubt from 
his Acadian guides, and must represent the form in which the word was adopted 
by the Acadians from the Indians. This is confirmed by the use of WAGANSIS 
by Bouchette on his Map of the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, of 1831, for 
Bouchette knew this region personally, and undoubtedly used Acadian guides in 
connection with the surveys he made along the line north from the source of the Saint 
Croix (these Transactions, VII, 1901, ii, 317). His form was adopted by later maps 
down to the fine one of Wilkinson, of 1859, far the best map of New Brunswick that 
has ever been made, which uses WAGANSIS, applied to the stream now called the 
Wagan. Meantime, however, still another form of the same name was coming into 
use for the same stream, namely WAGAN, or WAAGAN. The earliest use of this 
form I can find is in 1855, in Hardy’s Sporting Adventures in the New World (II, 126), 
where it appears as WAAGAN, adopted, as there seems no doubt, from the English- 
speaking lumberman who accompanied him; which form, accordingly, appears te 
have been an English abbreviation of the Acadian WAGANSIS. The same form 
appears in 1864 in Gordon’s Wilderness Journeys, 22, where also the little stream 
flowing into Grand River is called WAGANSIS,—for the first time, as it appears 
since Hardy had called this stream simply LITTLE WAAGAN. Gordon’s usage 
appears on later maps, notably Loggie’s of 1885, (with one A), and that of the Geo- 
logical Survey, (with two A’s). The names, therefore, may be considered as now 
firmly fixed in this usage., viz., WAGAN for the branch of Restigouche, and WAGAN- 
SIS for the branch of Grand River. As to the two forms WAGAN and WAAGAN, 
both historical precedence and practical convenience unite to favor the former, 
which has been adopted officially by the Geographic Board of Canada. 
ANALYSIS OF THE Worp.—The Micmacs now living at the mouth of the Restigouche 
and elsewhere all recognize the word as belonging to their tongue, and give its ab- 
original form and meaning without hesitation. Thus I have been given A-WOG-UN- 
OOK for this stream by a Micmac chief, while Mr. Michael Flinne, my correspondent 
above mentioned (page 179) obtained it for me as O-WOK’UN. As to its meaning, 
the Indians agree that it means PORTAGE. Rand uses the word, (OWOKUN) 
indeed, in this sense in his Reader, 97, and M. Chamberlain gives it as HA-WA’- KUN, 
(Maliseet Vocabulary, 61). WAGAN, therefore, is now equivalent to the Micmac 
O-WOK’-UN, meaning A PORTAGE. But what as to the termination SIS, which 
appears in all of the earlier records of the name? This, I presume, has been drop- 
ped by the modern Micmacs under the influence of the universal use of the shorter 
form by the whites, a phenomenon of which I have observed other instances, as will 
later appear. But the universal occurrence of the SIS in the earlier records proves 
that it occurred in the aboriginal form of the name. Its meaning there is clear, for 
it is obviously the diminutive suffix meaning LITTLE. In Micmac this is always 
CHICH, which the French familiarize into SIS, as the case of Kouchibouguac, al- 
ready discussed, further illustrates (page 180); but the attempt to reproduce the 
Micmac termination explains the ending of the AVAGANEITZ of Van Velden 
whose spelling of all names on his map is noticeably peculiar. The original form 
of the word would therefore have been O-WOK-UN-CHICH’, meaning LITTLE 
PORTAGE, making the name precisely equivalent to the Maliseet ANAGANCE 
earlier discussed. Its appropriateness is plain, because from near the head of this 
stream a short portage, not over two or three miles, extended across to a small stream 
emptying into Grand River, forming by far the most important aboriginal portage 
route in all this region, as has been fully described in these Transactions V, 1899, 11 256. 
