BULL. 30] 



WEJACK WELSH INDIANS 



931 



side of the river the Indian population of 

 Weit«hpec is now about 100. • (a. l. k.) 

 Ansafriki.— A. L. Kroeber, inf'n, 1904 (Karok 

 name). Weitchpec. — Ibid, (white men's name). 



Wejack. A name of the fisher {Mus- 

 tela pennanti) formerly in use among the 

 people of the fur country: from otchig or 

 odjik, the name of this animal in the Chip- 

 pewa dialect of Algonquian, which is also 

 the original of icoodcJiuck (q. v.). With 

 the confusion of names of fisher and mar- 

 mot may be compared that of the names 

 of the American glutton and the badger, 

 noted under Carcajou. (a. f. c. ) 



Wejegi (probably from Navaho, bitsigi, 

 'initshead,' or bitse'ge, 'among its rocks.' — 

 Matthews). The name given by a New 

 Mexican to Gen. J. H. Simpson in 1850 as 

 that of an important ancient pueblo ruin 

 in Chaco canyon, n. w. N. Mex., about 6 

 m. s. E. of Pueblo Bonito, on the N. side of 

 the arroyo, at the base of the canyon wall. 

 It is a rectangular structure, 225 by 120 

 ft in exterior dimensions, built around 3 

 sides of a court, the s. side of which is open, 

 there being no vestige of an inclosing 

 wall as with other Chaco Canyon pueblos. 

 The rooms average about 8 by 14 ft in 

 size, a few being about 8 ft square. Two 

 circular kivas are embraced within the 

 walls, each being 30 ft in diameter. The 

 building was 3 stories high, and consider- 

 able portions of wall are still standing, 

 but no timbers remain in place. The plan 

 of the building is remarkably symmetri- 

 cal, the masonry regular and well finished. 

 The material is grayish yellow sandstone, 

 laid in small tabular pieces with thin mor- 

 tar. There are small windows in the sec- 

 ond story, below which are apertures 2 by 

 3 ft in size, extending diagonally through 

 the walls. These appear to have been 

 used for loopholes for the defense of the 

 pueblo. (e. l. h.) 



EX'ndotliz. — Matthews, Navaho Leg-, passim, 1897 

 ('blue house': Navaho name). Wegegi. — Bell in 

 Jour. Ethnol. Soc. Lend., I, 247, 1869. Weje-gi.— 

 Simpson, Expert. Navajo Country, 77, 1860. Weji- 

 gi. — Harrtacre in Scribner's Mo., 275, Dee. 1878. 



Wekapaug ( 'at the end of the pond.' — 

 Trumbull). The principal village of the 

 eastern Niantic, formerly about the site 

 of Charlestown, R. I. Variants of the 

 name are Wecapaug, "Wequapaug, Wequa- 

 pauock, etc. 



Wekapaug. A Nipmuc village formerly 

 on the site of West Brookfield, Worcester 

 CO., Mass. 



Wickabaug. — Chase cited by Kinnicutt, Ind. 

 Names, 95, 1905. 



Wekeeponall. A Delaware \allage in 

 1758, on the w. bank of the Susquehanna, 

 about the mouth of Loyalsock cr., in the 

 present Lycoming co., Pa. (Post, Jour., 

 1758, 189, 1904). Probably identical with 

 Queen Esther's Town. 



Welagamika ( ' rich soil ' ) . A Delaware 

 village on the site of Nazareth, Lehigh 

 CO., Pa., abandoned about 1748. 



"Welagamika. — Heckewelder in Trans. Am. Philos. 

 Soc., n. s., IV, 359, 1834. Welakamika.— Ibid., 383. 



Welika (Creek: I'i-i 'water', Idika 'ex- 

 tending' or 'sitting'). A former Semi- 

 nole town, 4 m. e. of the Tallahassee towns, 

 probably in Leon co. , Fla. — H. R. Ex. Doc. 

 74 (1823), 19th Cong., Istsess., 27, 1826. 



Welsh Indians. According to a story of 

 the Welsh bards, first printed in Lloyd's 

 History of Cambria in 1584, a certain 

 Prince Madoc of Wales in the year 1170 

 sailed westward and discovered a new 

 land. Returning to Wales he fitted out 

 a second squadron, which sailed away 

 and was never heard of again. Although 

 the story is lacking in detail or corrobo- 

 rating evidence, its romantic side appealed 

 strongly to Welsh national pride, while 

 on the political side it was eagerly seized 

 to offset in a measure the Spanish claims 

 of priority in American discovery, so that 

 it has been perpetuated and constantly 

 amplified for the last 3 centuries by a 

 succession of writers, who have built up a 

 tribe of ' ' Welsh Indians ' ' on the flimsiest 

 theories until the extension of linguistic 

 investigation has left no resting place on 

 the entire continent for this mythic peo- 

 ple. The first discovery of a tribe of 

 Welsh Indians, in this case the Tuscarora 

 of North Carolina, was announced by the 

 Rev. Morgan Jones, who claimed to have 

 been taken prisoner by the Tuscarora, 

 who spared his life when thej^ heard him 

 pray in the Welsh language, which they 

 said was the same as their own. His 

 story was published in the Turkish Sj^y 

 about 1730 and in the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine in 1740, and was widely copied and 

 commented on. In 1768 another Welsh- 

 man, Rev. Charles Beatty (Journal of a 

 Tour in America), enlarged the story by 

 giving these Indians a Welsh Bible, which 

 they were unable to read, but which their 

 prisoner read and explained to them in 

 the W^elsh language to their great edifi- 

 cation. About the same time another 

 Welshman, Griffith, who had been cap- 

 tured by the Shawnee in 1764, claimed to 

 have met in his wanderings a tribe of In- 

 dians speaking his own language; and in 

 1774 David Jones, in his Journal, at- 

 tempted to give examples of Welsh identi- 

 ties for the languages of the Ohio valley. 

 Others have attempted to identify this 

 mythic tribe with the Nottoway, Croatan, 

 Modoc, Moki (Hopi), Padouca (Coman- 

 che), Pawnee, Kansa, Oto, and, most of 

 all, with the Mandan, the noted traveler 

 Catlin having devoted a wliole chapter to 

 the latter hypothesis, but with as little 

 success as all the others. Some theorists 

 have had the mythic tribe speak "Keltic," 

 and some, notably Custer, have made it 

 Gaelic. It seems hardly necessar}' to state 

 that there is not a provable trace of 

 Welsh, Gaelic, or any other European Ian- 



