[ganongI INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE. 271 



matter to be noted further below. It was this prevalent belief in a French origin 

 involving PETIT, perhaps confirmed by Gesner's direct positive statement above 

 cited, which led Wilkinson, greatest of New Brunswick cartographers and the first 

 to give attention to correctness in our place-nomenclature, to adopt PETITCODIAC 

 on his great map of 1859; and an}' doubts he may have had must have seemed to 

 him settled by the presence of the PETIT in the earliest grants, as cited above, with 

 which he was of course familiar. Wilkinson's map was the first to use this form, but 

 his great influence fixed it as a standard which has been followed by all maps, and 

 in all official uses since then, so that now this spelling is the universal standard. Thus 

 it seems clear that a belief in the French origin of the word, a belief wholly ground- 

 less as we shall see in a moment, has been sufficiently influential to introduce into 

 the word and retain there a wholly silent letter. 



Analysis of the Word. — The early French forms of the word suggest an 

 Indian origin, and in fact the Micmacs of this region claim it as their own. Thus 

 Rand, best of authorities, gives it as derived from the Micmac PETKOOTKWEÂK' 

 (First Reading Book, 96). A correspondent of mine who knew the Indians well, 

 obtained it for me as PET-CUT-QUIACK, and Dr. W. O. Raymond tells me in a 

 letter that John Paul, a Maliseet, gave it to him as PET-KET-QUE-AWK. I have 

 myself obtained it from Mark Paul, Chief at Folly Point, as PET-KÔT-QUË-OK 

 (in the exact form of my notes). Rev. Father Pacifique, in his most valuable Micmac 

 Almanac, of 1902, 21, gives it as PETGOTGOIAG. These four forms are obviously 

 identical, the differences representing no more than diversities in the ways by which 

 different persons represent the same Indian sounds. 



As to its meaning Rand gives it as THE RIVER BENDS ROUND IN A BOW, 

 or BENDING AROUND (Micmac-English Dictionary, 188), while my correspondent 

 was told by the Micmacs that it means VERY CROOKED, and Dr. Raymond 

 obtained it from John Paul as A LONG TURN. With this aid it is easy to determine 

 the roots in the word. Taking the original French as well as the Indian forms, the 

 first root appears to be PET. Now this is very clearly identical with the BIT or 

 BUT in Micmac words, EBÏTKWËA'and ËBÙTKWÊA' meaning TO BEND or 

 TO BOW (intransitive), as given by Rand in his English- Micmac Dictionary, 34, 41, 

 and obviously identical also with the roqt PET, PAT, or BAD in a number of Mali- 

 seet names, considered below, where it is always connected with an abrupt reverse 

 BEND or BACK TURN in a river. In all of these words, however, the root is not 

 simply PET, but has always associated with it a following K, so that the root in full 

 is PETK, or EPETK. In all cases of its use in these Provinces, so far as I can find, 

 this root applies to places in which the distinct feature is a bend or turn sweeping 

 around to the reverse of the original direction; and indeed the first part of the root 

 is clearly ÂP, given by Rand as an inseparable prefix meaning BACK (op cit. 27). 

 We may accordingly express the root as EPETK, commonly shortened to PETK, 

 sounded naturally in English as PET-EK, meaning BACK TURN. The second root 

 is equally clear; it is that given by Rand as KUHTOG, or as we may express it for 

 our purposes, KUTOG, meaning AROUND, in a number of combinations meaning 

 to go, or turn, or flow, around (op. cit. 20), a significance quite clearly involved in the 

 present name, as Rand's meaning, above given, will show. Both of the roots, PETK 

 and KUTOG are combined in the word PETKOODASE, meaning I BEND, BOW 

 AROUND (Rand, Micmac-English Dictionary, 138). The final root,— OYEK, IAC 

 or IAK of the Early French forms, and WEAK, UIACK, UÊ-OK, or OIAG, of the 

 modern Micmacs, at first suggests the root meaning RUNS OUT, as found in 

 Pokiok and other words considered in the preceding paper (page 83); but in fact it 

 has, J am sure, a different identity, being identical with ÛYÀ or ÀYÂ, in words 



