Browsing the website http://archive.org to me is a bit like the Digital Age equivalent of getting lost in a library full of dusty old obscure books. If you don’t share my interests, well, my opening sentence above may have already persuaded you to click off to another more exciting destination. If that’s the case, well, Bon Voyage!
But even I have to admit that a book published around 150 years ago on the geology of New Brunswick wouldn’t be very high on my list of “must-reads”. When you consider that geologists of yesteryear often compiled vocabulary lists in local languages related to the natural environment, though, there is an area of common ground where their interests and mine overlap.
A Preliminary Report on the Geology of New Brunswick by Henry Youle Hind is over 300 pages. Hidden in all those pages are at least two valuable gems. The first is a brief discussion on the etymology of “Acadia” – a topic that has been revisited a number of times by writers such as Eugene Vetromile (see his The Abenakis and their History, for example) and Albert Gatschet in his article “All around the Bay of Passamaquoddy”. It also gets treated in most of the works on the etymology of place names that were so popular in the writings of the late 19th century. Wikipedia, however, although often considered to be THE source of all knowledge in the online world – at least in this article - completely neglects the etymologies associated with local aboriginal languages that received so much attention from early scholars. I also glanced at this source – again I didn’t see any hint that the name was local in origin. Nor was there any mention of the etymology of the name on The Government of Nova Scotia’s website…
Ok, my “research” (loosely defined, I’m afraid), based on surfing a few websites is painfully superficial. With a bit more more time and a lot more effort - perhaps I could turn up something more substantial. Surely, it is not only the dusty and forgotten volumes and tattered academic papers written by (mostly) “Dead Old White Men” more than a century ago that treat this topic – and, ironically, discuss the etymology from the perspective of related meanings in the original Algonquian languages spoken there – rather than Greek! But when a noted scholar on Native North-American languages, like William Bright, in his book “Native American placenames of the United States” takes us no further than to say Acadia likely has its roots in a confusion with an Ancient Greek word and borrowing from a Micmac term, what other conclusion can we reach – other than that there is nothing new to say? Disappointing – to say the least!
The other item of interest is an appendix with a list of words in the Maliseet (there are a number of different spellings) language spoken in that region and place names derived from Abenaki. The latter, obviously predates those found in the works on that language by Joseph Laurent and Henry Lorne Masta. (you can purchase reprints produced by Global Language Press on Amazon) I’ll publish this material here later.
Here’s an extract from Hind’s first chapter, which includes a section entitled on “The origin of Acadia”. Note that, it looks like wanting to read the original will mean you’ll need to download the pdf from archive.org. It’s 26 mb. The versions in EPUB, Kindle etc formats are much smaller than the pdf – but are unedited and therefore are the original raw OCR’d texts. Fortunately, Google Books comes to the rescue here. They have a text version online that is much more readable. There are a few typos and errors from OCR – but they are relatively few. The following is from that source – with the occasional correction.
—————
ORIGIN OF THE NAME “ACADIA.”
In the Report of the Royal Commissioners appointed to investigate and
report upon the respective claims of Canada and New Brunswick to the
Territory ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Washington,* the following remarkable passage occurs, which, by the way, has recently received
additional strength from the disputes relating to the Straits of San Juan. —
“The want of good maps, and correct information as to the topographical
and physical character of the country, have been the principal cause of the
constantly-recurring disputes which have now for more than half a century
occurred in this part of North America* and rendered necessary Commission after Commission for inquiry and research.”
POLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF A NAME.
It appears, however, far more singular, that a mere name, whose origin is
still disputed, should have been instrumental in leading to the wars between
England and France which terminated in the conquest of Canada.
“The misunderstandings which arose in the construction of this expression,
“all ACADIE, according to its ancient limits,” — ended in the war of 1766,
and the annexation of all the possessions of France in North America to the
British Empire.
The interest in the word ‘Acadie’ has been recently revived under very
different circumstances to those which first drew the attention of the entire
civilized world to its origin and meaning, and which gave rise to intermina-
ble controversies, and finally led to sanguinary wars.
The Province of New Brunswick having formerly been wholly or in part
included within the ‘ancient limits of Acadie,’ a glance at the origin of this
word may not be out of place in a geographical sketch of the country it
once in part represented.
In 1608, the Sieur de Monts received letters patent, in which the word
“ACADIE,” or “Cadie,” is first used as the name of the country. His grant
is from the “40me degre de latitude jusqu’a 46me,” the 40th degree of
latitude to the 46th, thus including that part of New Brunswick which lies
south of a line drawn between Fredericton and Bay Verte in the County of
‘Westmorland.
The Boundary Commission consider the origin of the word ‘Acadia” ‘*’ to
be as follows : —
“The obscurity which has been thrown in past times over the territorial
extent of Acadie, that country of which De Monts received letters patent in
1603, was occasioned by not attending to the Indian origin of the name, and
to the repeated transfer of the name to other parts of the country to which
the first settlers afterwards removed. Even before the appointment of De
la Roche, in 1598, as Lieutenant-General of the country, including those
parts adjacent to the Bay of Fundy, the Bay into which the Saint Croix
* Blue Book, 1851, page 94. t Report of Commissioners on North Eastern Boundary.
J Fastes Chronologiques, quoted in Report of Commissioners on North Eastern Boundary, 1910.
empties itself was known by the Indians of the Moriseet tribe, which still inhabits New Brunswick, by the name Peskadumquodiah, from Peskadum, Fish, and Quodiah, the name of a fish resembling the Cod.*
“The French, according to their usual custom, abbreviated the Indian name, which We sometimes, in the old records, read Quodiac and ‘ Cadie,’ and at length we find it taking the general designation of ‘Acadie.’
“The English race have turned the original Indian name into Passamaquoddy, and the Indians of the district have long been by them familiarly called Quoddy Indians, as by the French they have been called Les Acadiens.”
That the word ” Cadie,” was at one time commonly used, may be inferred from its occurrence in the Relations of the Jesuits for 1671.—” Qui habitent les costes de Cadie et de la Nouvelle Angleterre.”
Dr. Dawson, in his “Acadian Geology,” gives a rather different version of the origin of this historic name :—
“The aboriginal Micmacs of Nova Scotia, being of a practical turn of mind, were in the habit of bestowing on places the names of the useful articles which could be found in them, affixing to such terms the word Acadie, denoting the local abundance of the particular objects to which the names referred. The early French settlers appear to have supposed this common termination to be the proper name of the country, and applied it as the general designation of the region now constituting the Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island.”
FORMER LIMITS OF ACADIA.
The Jesuit Father, Hierostie Lallemont, writing from Quebec in 1659, says “Acadia is that part of New France which faces the sea, and which extends from New England to Gaspe, or more correctly to the entrance of the great River Saint Lawrence. This extent of country, which is fully 300 leagues, has but one name and one language.”—Relations des Jesuits, 1659.
In a Map by Coronelli, dated 1689, published at Paris, the Peninsula southcast of the Bay of Fundy is called “Acadie,” whilst the country north of tho Bay of Fundy and watered by the Saint John River, is named ” Etechemins,” after the Indian tribe whose hunting grounds formerly extended over that part of the Province. Under the French these were frequently separate governments. By the Treaty of St. Germain in 1632, “Canada and Acadia were restored to France.” By the Treaty of Breda in 1667, France was left with all her old possessions, as well as by the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697. The consequence of these frequent mutations was, that the French possessions east, west, and south of the Saint John, were occasionally placed under one and the same jurisdiction, which for the time went by the name of ” Acadie.”
* The Provincial name of this fish is ” Pollock,” and it still continues to frequent that Bay.