BULL. 30] 



WIDJ A W IHINASHT 



951 



Widja ( WVdja). A Haida town of the 

 Widja-gitunai family formerly on the n. 

 coast of Graham id., just w. of the en- 

 trance to Masset inlet, Queen Charlotte 

 ids., Brit. Col. (j. R. s. ) 



Wi'dja.—S wanton, Cont. Haida, 281. 1905. Wi'- 

 ts'a.— Boas in 12th Rep. N. W. Tribes Can., 23, 1898. 



"Widja-gitunai ( UVdja g'ltAnd'-i, 'Gituns 

 of the town of Widja' ) . A Haida family 

 of the Eagle clan, named from its town 

 on the X. coast of Graham id., Brit. Col., 

 between Masset inlet and Virago sd. 

 This with the Tohlka-gitunai, Chets-gi- 

 tunai, and Djus-hade formed one larger 

 related group. (j. r. s. ) 



Wi'dja gitAna'-i. — Swanton, Cont. Haida, 275, 1905. 

 Wi'ts'a gyit'inai'. — Boas in 12th Rep. N. W. Tribes 

 Can., 23, 1898. 



Wiekagjoc (apparently a corruption of 

 uikicajek, 'head of a creek.' — Gerard). 

 A tribe of the INIahican confederacy dwell- 

 ing on the E. bank of Hudson r. in the 

 vicinity of Hudson, Columbia cc, N. Y. 

 Wickagjock. — Wassenaar (1632) quoted by Rut- 

 tenber. Tribes Hud.son R., 71, 1872. Wiekagjocks. — 

 Ruttenber, ibid., 85. 



"Wieska. See Nanahozho. 



Wigwam. ( 1 ) A name for an Algon- 

 quian dwelling, an arbor-like or conical 

 structure in which, from Canada to North 

 Carolina, was employed the same general 

 mode of erection, which varied mainly 

 in the plant materials (saplings, barks, 

 rushes, or flags) used, and which differ- 

 ences in soil and climate changed here 

 and there to a certain extent (see Habita- 

 tions) . The word, which ai:)pears in En- 

 glish as early as 1634 (Wood, New En- 

 gland's Prospect, 65, 1634) was, like the 

 terms skunk, musquash, etc., borrowed 

 from Abnaki by the colonists of e. Mas- 

 sachusetts, who adopted it as the name 

 for an Indian habitation, in preference to 

 the term ^oetu (iritu) used by the natives 

 among whom they settled. The Massa- 

 chuset Indians, like the Narraganset, 

 used also as the name for a house the 

 word weluom (ivitnom), formed from the 

 same base. Eliot (Indian Grammar Be- 

 gun, 11, 1666), who was ignorant of the 

 origin of the word under consideration, 

 mentions, we may suppose through an 

 inadvertence, a word vekuuomut (for 

 iretaomut), which he interprets 'in his 

 house,' and adds: "hence Ave corrupt 

 this word [to] wigwam." This errone- 

 ous etymology, based on a word nonex- 

 istent in the Massachuset dialect, and, m 

 fact, impossible in any Algonquian dia- 

 lect, has unfortunately been copied by 

 nearly every English dictionary. 



The Abnaki -word vAgwdm, literally 

 'dwelling,' is iroravAgw, 'he dwells,' + 

 tiie formative -am, from the Algonquian 

 root trig, vik {ig, ik, in composition), 'to 

 dwell,' and is cognate with Micmac wig- 

 ivdm, Mohegan vAkwdm, Lenape (Dela- 

 ware) %nkwam, and Chippewa vigiwavi 

 (from udgiw, 'he dwells,' a word obsolete 



in Chippewa but preserved in Cree), and 

 Nipissing wikiwdm, and by change, in 

 this dialect, of to to in, mikiivdm. The 

 Virginia Renape seem not to have em- 

 ployed the word wikicdm used by their 

 relatives of the N., but substituted for it 

 the term komuk, which, like its cognates 

 in other Algonquian dialects (Lenape gd- 

 mlk or kdmlk, Abnaki gdmlk, Cree and 

 Chippewa kdmlk, Masachuset^o?/i«Z;, Nar- 

 raganset komuk, etc. ), was always used in 

 compounds, and never disjunctively. The 

 word uigwang used by IJeverley (Hist. 

 Virginia, 1705) is merely a corruption of 

 the northern vocable vigivdm, with which 

 he was evidently unfamiliar. 



(2) A name applied by travelers to the 

 dwellings of Indians other than those of 

 Algonquian stock, or to the haljitations 

 of the natives of countries other than 

 North America, as for example: "Their 

 houses or wigwams, which they [the 

 Caribs] call carbets" (Stedman, Exped. 

 against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, 

 I, 403, 1806) ; "The Fuegian wigwam re- 

 sembles, in size ... a haycock" (Dar- 

 win, Jour, of Researches, 212, 1845); 

 "rude jackales, somewhat resembling 

 the wigwams of the Pawnees " (Gregg, 

 Commerce of the Prairies, i, 286, 1851). 



(3) A name applied by the founders of 

 the Tammany Society of New York City 

 to their headquarters. 



(4) A name sometimes ajjplied to a 

 large structure in which a nominating 

 convention or other political meeting 

 takes place. 



Certain summer hospital tents for chil- 

 dren are known as " wigwams," and there 

 is also a "wigwam shoe" or "wigwam 

 slipper." (w. K. G. a. f. c. ) 



Wigwasaing. A term used on the coast 

 of New England for the operation of tak- 

 ing eels by torch-light; spelled also v:e- 

 quashinq. In a letter of N. Freeman in 

 1792 (Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., 1st s., i, 231, 

 1806), he says: "The Indians when they 

 go in a canoe with a torch, to catch eels 

 in the night, call it veeqiiash, or angli- 

 cized, wequashing." The word is a par- 

 ticiple of a verb ' ' to wigvas, ' ' contracted 

 and anglicized from Massachuset u-ikires- 

 zveu, 'he illuminates it (something ani- 

 mate, say a fish) by burning (i. e., torch- 

 ing).' ■ (w. R.G.) 



Wihatset {Wi-Jiat^-set). A populous 

 Chumashan village formerly at Punta 

 Pedregosa, near Point Mugu, Ventura 

 CO., Cal. — Henshaw, Buenaventura MS. 

 vocab., B. A. E., 1882._ 



Wihinaaht. A division of Shoshoni, 

 formerly in w, Idaho, n. of Snake r. and 

 in the vicinity of Boise City. The name 

 appears to be obsolete, the surviving 

 Indians having been absorbed by other 

 Shoshoni bands and now being under 

 the Fort Hall school superintondency in 



