[ganoncI INDIAN PLACE-NOMENCLATURE. 275 



Kennebecasis just where that river makes a remarkable great reverse bend, — a 

 typical example of the kind called in the Province an Oxbow. These facts taken 

 together make the origin of the name quite plain. The word is evidently identical 

 with BADKICK and PETKEK, and the PETK of Petitcodiac, all considered above, 

 i.e. it is the Indian PETK-IK, meaning BACK BEND-PLACE, in description of the 

 oxbow in the Kennebecasis; this was familiarized into the more easily pronounced 

 form by the whites, and extended by them to the brook. 



This application of the name PETK-IK, in conjunction with the use of BAD- 

 KICK and PETKEK, suggests that the word may have been a general topographical 

 designation for Oxbows, which are common on our rivers. 



The word PATICAKE, however, has undergone a further curious change in its 

 adoption as the name of a railway station at the crossing of the brook, where it ap- 

 pears as PASSEKEAG. But the origin of this form has been explained (these 

 Transactions, II 1896, ii, 260, 209) where PASSEKEAG is shown to be a later manu- 

 factured name made from PATICAKE on the analogy of OSSEKEAG, the old name 

 of the next station, now called HAMPTON. Presumably it was thought that the 

 original form PATICAKE would not form a dignified name for a railroad station. 



PATAGUMKIS. The name of a small branch of the Penobscot River in 

 Maine, a little above Matawamkeag on the west side; it is pronounced PADAGUM- 

 PUS or PADDYGUMPUS by the river men. Greenleaf, in whose list of Indian 

 names of 1823 the word seems first to appear, says that it applies to "a point stream 

 and falls" (Moses Greenleaf, Maine's First Mapmaker, 123). Greenleaf spells the 

 word PATA-GUM-KIS, though on his map, of 1842, he has it, evidently by acci- 

 dental omission, PATAGUMKI, which explains that form on Wilkinson's map of 

 1859. Thoreau gives it as PAYTGUMKISS, (no doubt a misprint for PATYGUM- 

 KISS) "PETTICOAT," which latter I do not understand, though it suggests Petit- 

 codiac (The Maine Woods, 326). Greenleaf gives the meaning of the word, as HALF 

 CIRCLE. Hubbard, however, (Woods and Lakes of Maine, 207) makes it mean 

 SANDY ROUND COVE, though his analysis of the roots is faulty. Recently Mrs. 

 Eckstorm, whose skilled aid I have previously had occasion to acknowledge, has 

 sent me a note from Jas. Francis, one of the best of Maine guides and a man well 

 versed in these matters, to the effect that Patagumkis means A SHARP TURN OF 

 THE RIVER WHERE THE BOTTOM IS GRAVELLY, while another of her 

 informants states that there is at low water a curved sandy beach nearjts mouth. 

 Taking the data collectively, the construction of the word becomes clear. The first 

 part obviously involves the root 'PET(E)K, (which is evidently the same in 

 Micmac Maliseet and Penobscot), of the four names preceding, meaning a BACK 

 TURN, with which all three explanations, HALF CIRCLE, ROUND COVE, and 

 SHARP TURN above given are in full agreement. Greenleaf's map does in fact 

 show an abrupt bend, presumably in reality a genuine oxbow, in the Penobscot 

 where the Patagumkis enters. The second root is equally clear; it is plainly AM K, a 

 very wide spread root meaning GRAVEL, or SAND, here again in full agreement 

 with the meanings above given. The remainder of the word, i.e. — IS, appears to 

 be nothing other than the softened locative termination — IS, used instead of IK after 

 a preceding K sound, as mentioned for the Micmac earlier in this paper (page 264) 

 and of which I have found a good many other examples in Penobscot, later to be 

 presented. It cannot well represent an abbreviated diminutive, SIS, because 

 that termination is always comparative and involves a larger PATAGUMKI K near 

 by, of which there is no trace. The name in full, therefore, would be PETEK- 

 AMK-IS, meaning literally BACK TURN-GRAVEL-PLACE, or, more generally, 



