I give more of their definitions, for what they are worth,--partly _because_ they differ sometimes from the commonly received ones. They never analyzed these words before. After long deliberation and repeating of the word, for it gave much trouble, Tahmunt said that _Chesuncook_ meant a place where many streams emptied in (?), and he enumerated them,--Penobscot, Umbazookskus, Cusabesex, Red Brook, etc.--"_Caucomgomoc_,--what does that mean?" "What are those large white birds?" he asked. "Gulls," said I. "Ugh! Gull Lake."--_Pammadumcook_, Joe thought, meant the Lake with Gravelly Bottom or Bed.--_Kenduskeag_, Tahmunt concluded at last, after asking if birches went up it, for he said that he was not much acquainted with it, meant something like this: "You go up Penobscot till you come to _Kenduskeag_, and you go by, you don't turn up there. That is _Kenduskeag_." (?) Another Indian, however, who knew the river better, told us afterward that it meant Little Eel River.--_Mattawamkeag_ was a place where two rivers meet. (?)--_Penobscot_ was Rocky River. One writer says, that this was "originally the name of only a section of the main channel, from the head of the tide-water to a short distance above Oldtown."
A very intelligent Indian, whom we afterward met, son-in-law of Neptune, gave us also these other definitions:--_Umbazookskus_, Meadow Stream; _Millinoket_, Place of Islands; _Aboljacarmegus_, Smooth-Ledge Falls (and Dead-Water); _Aboljacarmeguscook_, the stream emptying in; (the last was the word he gave when I asked about _Aboljacknagesic_, which he did not recognize;) _Mattahumkeag_, Sand-Creek Pond; _Piscataquis_, Branch of a River.
I asked our hosts what _Musketaquid_, the Indian name of Concord, Mass., meant; but they changed it to _Musketicook_, and repeated that, and Tahmunt said that it meant Dead Stream, which is probably true. _Cook_ appears to mean stream, and perhaps _quid_ signifies the place or ground. When I asked the meaning of the names of two of our hills, they answered that they were another language. As Tahmunt said that he traded at Quebec, my companion inquired the meaning of the word _Quebec_, about which there has been so much question. He did not know, but began to conjecture. He asked what those great ships were called that carried soldiers. "Men-of-war," we answered. "Well," he said, "when the English ships came up the river, they could not go any further, it was so narrow there; they must go back,--go-back,--that's Que-bec." I mention this to show the value of his authority in the other cases.