2 JOHN EEADE : 



Abenaki,' translate the term by point du jour.'" In Judge Charles Grill's " Notes sur de vieux 

 manuscrits abénakis," occiirs a passage which confirms, while adding to, that derivation. 

 The late Father Yetromile, who had been a missionary to the Passamaquoddy and Penobscot 

 Indians, claimed, Mr. Grill says, that the word Abenaki signified, in the dialects both of New 

 England and Acadia, " our ancestors of the east," being derived from vmnb (white, the 

 dawn) and naghi (ancestors). In Abbé Cuoq's recently published " Lexique de la langue 

 algonquine," Wabanaki is made to signify " la terre du levant." It seems fairly reasonable to 

 conclude from such a consensus of evidence that Wabanaki is the correct form of the name. 



As the Missabos or Giant Rabbit legends form an important portion of the Wabanaki 

 folklore, it may not be out of place to mention that Dr. Erinton traces that cycle of stories 

 to the resemblance between wabos {a r&hhit) and loaban (the dawn). " Here," he writes, 

 " we are to look for the real meaning of the name Missabos. It originally meant the Great 

 Light, the Mighty Seer, the Orient, the Dawn — which you please, as all distinctly refer 

 to the one original idea, the Bringer of Light and Sight, of Knowledge and Life. In time, 

 this meaning became obscured, and the rabbit, whose name was drawn probably from 

 the same root, as in the northern winters its fur becomes white, was substituted and so 

 the myth of light degenerated into an animal fable." 



The "Wabanaki comprise the Micmacs of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New 

 Brunswick, the Abenakis of St. Francis and Becancour, and the Penobscot and Passama- 

 qiioddy Indians of Maine. This north-eastern branch of the far-spreading Algonquin 

 family is of great historic interest, not only for the part it has played in the post- 

 Columbian annals of North America, but as having probably preserved in its legends and 

 traditions the traces of intercourse with the Northmen who came to the New "World 

 many centuries before the time of Columbus. Attracted thither in 1882, in his search for 

 myths and folklore, Mr. Charles G. Leland did not expect to make any notable discoveries 

 in the Passamaquoddy district. But to his amazement, he found there a far grander 

 mythology than any which had hitherto been recorded among the Indians of the north . 

 He found that the number of their stories was virtually endless, and that most of 

 them were of great antiquity. They had all originally been cast in poetic mould, and the 

 strangest feature in connection with them was the evidence which they furnished of 

 affinity, on the one hand, with the myths of the Eskimo, of the Finns, the Lapps and the 

 Samoyeds, and on the other, with the Eddas and the Sagas of the Northmen. 



Mr. Leland has published the result of his researches in a delightful and instructive 

 volume, " The Algonquin Legends of New England ; or. Myths and Folklore of the 

 Micmac, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot tribes." In his preface, he mentions among those 

 to whom he was largely indebted for assistance, Mrs. "W. "Wallace Brown, of Calais, Maine, 

 from whom he received a great proportion of the most curious folklore of the Passama- 

 quoddies, especially of such parts as are connected with the Edda. In his list of authori- 

 ties we find, under the head of " Books, Manuscripts, etc.," " a manuscript collection of 

 Passomaquoddy legends and folklore, by Mrs. "W. "Wallace Brown, all given with the 

 greatest accuracy as narrated by Indians, some in broken Indian-English." Under the 

 head of " persons " consulted in the preparation of the book we find the name of " Sapiel 

 Selmo, keeper of the "Wampum Record, formerly read eA'ery four years at the kindling of 

 the great fire at Canawagha.' " 



' Causjlinawaga, near Montreal. 



