7 
reports its original, Amoscougan, as it appears in * The Indian Perepole’s Deposition.”' It has been 
thought to have been given in compliment to Governor Andros,’ who had taken an active interest 
in the affairs of Maine for several years, beginning as early as 1677. But the name appears in an 
instrument for the conveyance of the right of sovereiguty over a large tract of land on-both sides 
of the river, from the falls at Brunswick, by Thomas Purchase, to John Winthrop of Massachu- 
setts, in 1639. Perhaps the influence of Andros in the province had the power to perpetuate his 
name in this connection successfully over the other sixty forms in which it has been written, 
according as its sound was received by the ancient hunters, owners, and settlers. There seems to 
have been a disposition to make it conform to known words in the English usage. The name 
“Cogein” is a family appellation in New England; andit was easy to place before it, according to 
ach man’s preference, other familiar names, and to call the stream “ Ambrose Coggin,” Amos 
Coggin,” “ Andrews Coggin,” “ Andros Coggin,” and * Andrus Coggin.” Its derivation is from the 
word namds, fish, abbreviated, as is the frequent practice, by dropping the first letter, and skaouhi- 
gan, (skowhegan,) a fish-spear. Under the word poisson, Rale gives kankskaouihigan as a trident, or 
the long piece of iron in the middle of it. The last part of this word denotes the iron point 
between the two outer portions, each of which is called énegahquok. The syllable kaiik is the line 
that draws the flexible sides together... This part of the word is retained as a local name origi- 
nally applied to the falls at Skowhegan, on the Kennebee, just below which the waters have long 
been frequented for torch-light spearing.t- The name, as furnished by Perepole with his description, 
marked the part of the river above the Amitigonpontook—that is, the “ Clay-land Falls” at Lewiston ; 
upward to “ Aroeckamecook ”—that is the ‘ Hoe-land,” at Canton Point. The rips and shallows in 
this portion were favorable for spearing fish beyond any part below. The name may, therefore, be 
translated the Fish Spear, or Fish Spearing? 
ATKINS’ BAy is the expanse of water near the mouth of the Kennebec, between Hunniwell’s 
Point, on which Fort Popham stands, and Cox’s Head. It takes its name from an owner of the 
adjoining territory, who was an original settler,’ and afterward sold his property to William Cock,’ 
in 1662, consisting of 1,300 acres of land, of which the first existing map was made in 1731. It is 
without doubt the aboriginal Sabino, which will be explained in its proper place. Mr, Atkins had 
ten daughters, and the fact that in the transfer of property after his decease they all signed the 
deed with their marks shows the studied inattention to female education in the laws of Massa- 
chusetts, from the south shore of which State Mr. Atkins came, and to which he appears to have 
removed after the sale of his land. 
BEDABEDEC,! (Be-da-be-da-ki.)—The original name of the region about “Owl's Head.” The 
word is first seen in Champlain, who describes it as “ alow land,” (une terre basse,) and the cape as 
“La Pointe de Bedabedec.” The derivation of the name is somewhat conjectural; but it appears 
to come from nébe, water, abbreviated and repeated; da, interjectional, there, to indicate admira- 
1 Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. III, 333, taken from the Pejepscot Papers, Vol. 1, 504%. Perepole is Pierre-Paul. 
> Webster's Dictionary, p. 1629. 
‘Compare skahaiigan, bois fourchu, in Rale, and skahogan, a “forked post,” in “Kimzowi Awikhigan,” the 0 
haying a nasal sound ; sekowhegan in Penobscot and sequahegan in Micmac is the iron spike, formerly bone. 
The application of the parts of this word will _ 
be more apparent from the following representa- TES SSS — 
tion of the spear as used now. The wooden trian- 
gular pieces of wood open upon the springs when pressed on the fish, and the iron spike pierces him. As the triangles 
spring back the line is drawn and he is secured. 
'Lithgow’s Deposition. Pej. Pap., Vol. 1. 
5Tn an account of places on the coast and interior, with their names and distances, Purchas gives Mas-sa-ki-ga, 
which, from its position in his statement, was on the Kennebec. The full form of the word would be Na-mds-sa-ke-gan, 
(namas, fish.) This is sufficiently like the present name to show the nearness to certainty that it denoted the same 
loeality as the present name of the falls on the Kennebee at Skowhegan. 
* He attended a meeting for settling a government on the Kennebec, May 23, 1654, Hazard’s Coll., I, 585, 
7From him came the name Cock’s Head, now Cox’s. 
8Pej. Pap., Vol. 6, Map 52. 
‘Ch. II, p. 62, edit. 1632. See Jefiery’s maps. Champlain speaks of the mountains of “ Bedabedee,” p. 67, 
evidently meaning the Megunticook Range at Camden, called by Colonel Chureh, in his Indian Wars, “ The Mathebestuck 
Hills,” and by John Smith, nearer the beginning of the same century, (1614,) Mecaddacut, “against whose feet doth beat 
Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d ser., Vol. VI, 117. Church’s narrative, 141. 2, Williamson, 95. 
the sea.” 
