Again on the lower St. Lawrence there are Wawenock descendants. At Tadousac and Chicoutimi, the Nicola families have become admitted to land rights with the Montagnais of these places. At Escoumains is another named Jacques. Four children of old Joseph Nicola who migrated many years ago from Trois Rivières, and settled also at Chicoutimi, also have numerous offspring by either Montagnais or Canadian wives. Possibly these emigrants came to the Saguenay with the ancestors of the Gille, Neptune, and Phillippe families at Lake St. John. At Tadousac, Joseph Nicolar remembered the text of a Wawenock song which his father used to sing. This is given with the other texts in this paper (see p. [197]).
I should add, that with few exceptions among the older people, these Wawenock descendants have become so merged either with the Canadian or the Montagnais that they know almost nothing of their own people. In the family names, however, we can see the survival of influences which began in Maine when the ancestors of the Wawenock were close to the Penobscot with whom they have some family names in common.
The following are the family names of the tribe. Some are still in existence (marked *); others have recently become extinct.
| Pabi·welə mα´t | “He is thought small.” The family name of the grandmother of François Neptune, our informant. This name may be the original of “Paterramett” mentioned in the treaty of 1727 (cf. p. 174). |
| *Metsałabα̨lα´t | “Lost his Breath” (?) This name is undoubtedly the original of “Wooszurraboonet” of 1727 (cf. p. 174). |
| Sogαla´n | “It rains.” |
| Sezawegwu´n | “Feather in the hair.” |
| Mekwas·α´k | “Red stain.” |
| Abələwe´s· | French “Ambroise.” The same as “Omborowess” in 1727 (cf. p. 175). |
| *Obä̦´ | French, (St.) Urbain. |
| *Neptα´n | Neptune, doubtful origin. This is also a Penobscot family name. |
| *Nicola´ | Nicholas, also a Penobscot family name. |
So far as can be said at present the material culture of the Wawenock was practically identical with that of the Penobscot and St. Francis Abenaki. Not much of this is preserved by the survivors at the present day. The tribe, however, still keeps its organization under a chief. In the traditions of the Wabanaki Confederacy, as far as we know them, the Wawenock are not mentioned, though they had been represented in the alliance at an earlier time.
As for social organization no knowledge is preserved of the family hunting territories, for it seems that at Becancour hunting has not been a practicable occupation for several generations. Neither dances nor ceremonies have been performed within the memory of the old people, so we only have the names of several dances which are remembered through tradition. The term alnαk`hadi´·n denotes the common dance (Penobscot alnαba´gan) performed as a part of the marriage ceremony which, like that of the Penobscot, is proposed by means of wampum. Several strings of wampum, which were given to the parents of his grandmother by her husband when he proposed marriage, were fortunately obtained from François Neptune. Nawadəwe´·, “song and dance” (Penobscot, Nawa´dəwe), was a war dance in which the men carried tomahawks, and skogogwəga´n, “snake dance,” was similar to the Penobscot ma`tagi´posi·, “moving in a serpentine manner.”
In the field of folk lore, medicinal lore and shamanism much still remains to be done with the informant. The culture hero and transformer Gluskα̨be´, “the Deceiver,” is the same as that of the Penobscot, and shares generally the same characteristics. A comparative study of the transformer (Gluskap) cycle in Wabanaki mythology is being prepared by the writer, so it does not seem essential to refer just now to cognate elements in the mythology of the other tribes of the group.
Within the last generation the Wawenock dialect has gone completely out of use. Most of the survivors are half-breeds and speak French. The only person I found who knows the dialect is François Neptune, supposedly a full blood, in his sixties (1914), the oldest man at Becancour, whose acquaintance I had the good fortune to make in 1914 during a trip of reconnaissance among the Abenaki in company with Mr. Henry Masta of this tribe.[44] Neptune’s interest in his dialect, which he knew to be on the verge of extinction, made work with him quite easy, although the state of his health prevented our doing more at the time. The following few myths in text will, I think, enable us to form some idea of its intermediate position between Penobscot and St. Francis Abenaki when more of the texts already collected in both of these dialects are published.[45] It seems hardly necessary to remark that, in the scanty material on this region so far available in print, there exists absolutely nothing in the Wawenock dialect.
[44] It might be added that Mr. Masta has given considerable time to the study of his people, and he is quite satisfied as to the identity of the Abenaki of Becancour with the Wawenock of early Maine history.
[45] Comparative linguistic and mythological material in Penobscot, which the Wawenock most closely resembles may be found in the writer’s “Penobscot Transformer Texts,” International Journal of American Linguistics, vol. I, no. 3, 1918, while Doctor Michelson has given the position of Penobscot among the eastern Algonkian dialects in his Preliminary Report on the Linguistic Classification of Algonquian Tribes, Twenty-eighth Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethn., 1913, pp. 280-288.