speck) 



INTRODUCTION 171 



Bearing upon this is the fact that part of the St. Francis band 

 residing near Durham, Province of Quel)ec, until recently preserved 

 the local name kwena'mwiaiv, "long point people." This has been 

 thought to be possibly connected with the term just given. Joseph 

 Laurent"" assigns the same name (Kwanahomoik) to Durham and 

 gives the meaning "where the turn of the river makes a long point." 

 It is evidently, however, a later name acquired by these St. Francis 

 families after they had settled at Dm-ham. 



In ancient times the tribes on the coast of Maine extended into the 

 interior, but were more or less locally identified with the mouths of the 

 rivers and the large bays. The Wawenock were then located south- 

 west of the Penobscot, whose proper territory on the coast only sur- 

 rounded PenobscotBay. According to tradition among the Penobscot, 

 their nearest relatives, the Wawenock, as we shall henceforth call them 

 on preferred authority," are definitely remembered as Wali'nakiak, 

 "People of the bay country," because they were located on the shores 

 and in the country back of what is now known as Sagadahoc. 

 This country Hes southwest of Penobscot Bay and includes a number 

 of smaller bays from St. George's Bay, in Knox County, westward 

 to the mouth of the Kennebec River, embracing Lincoln and part of 

 Sagadahoc Counties. The Penobscot also refer to the inhabitants 

 of this region as Sonjkadela'wiak, "People of the mouth of the river" 

 (Sagadahoc), the term being evidently another name for the Wawe- 

 nock. At the present time, not having held any contact with the 

 Wawenock since their removal to Canada early in the eighteenth 

 century, they know the tribe only by name. There is some evidence, 

 however, in one of the family names, Neptune, which occurs among 

 both the Penobscot and Wawenock, that during this period some of 

 the latter may have joined the Penobscot or vice versa. 



From these sources w^e can derive a fairly definite idea of the 

 Wawenock habitat and also two of the tribal synonyms.* Sagada- 

 hoc seems to have been a commonly used designation for both the 

 comitry and people. 



In the matter of the first European contact with the tribe it is 

 probable that Captain Waymouth in 1609, when he encountered 

 the Indians while riding at anchor ofl^ the coast of Maine, in what 



•■ New Familiar Abenalds and English Dialogues, Quebec, 1884, p. 210. 



' Various spellings for the tribal name have been given at different times by different authors, occasion, 

 ally even in the same work. Among these occur such forms as Weweenock, Wewoonock, Wewenock, 

 Wewonock: the diHerences being evidently due to illegible handwriting in the manuscripts and to the 

 usual whims of orthography. 



8 It seems a bit strange in passing along over the literature of this region to note that Maurault, who se«ms 

 to have known Wabanaki history and ethnology very well, did not mention anything of the term Wawe- 

 nock in his chapter on the establishment of the Abenaki at Becancour. (Maurault, op. cit., chap. 7.) He 

 does, however, say that the Indians at Becancour were Abenaki and Sokokis who came previously from 

 Damisokantik, which term he correctly derives from Namesokantsik, "place where there are many fish," 

 later changed to Megantic, the present name of a large lake near the Canadian boundary. It may be re- 

 marked that tradition supports this assertion, for the Wawenock informant, Francois Neptune, says that 

 his grandmother knew that some of her people came from there, and that the families at Becancour formerly 

 had bunting grounds there. 



