WAUKEAG NECK & THE ORIGINS OF THE NAME

WAUKEAG NECK & THE ORIGINS OF THE NAME

The peninsula where the resort of Sorrento was established has been worked and enjoyed by many over time.  Each succeeding people gave the land a different name, but like so many other places in New England, the one the Native people provided was favored for generations.

While we know the name’s origins, a precise translation of Waukeag is harder to place.  Not only are there different interpretations of the name, but it may not be specific to the peninsula in particular but the entire area surrounding Sullivan Falls.  If we look at the logs of the French explorer Antonie de Cadillac, Waukeag may even refer to the entire Frenchman’s Bay region.

Whether the indigenous people used the name to refer specifically to the peninsula or the region in general, Herson points out that the name Waukeag had several interpretations over time.

I recommend both Catherine Herson’s introduction and Alice Wellman’s piece from this book, for a quick history of the Wabanaki people and the member tribes that settled in the area.

While there may be no definitive translation of Waukeag from the Native languages, there are a few theories as to the meaning.  Regardless of the actual meaning of the name, there seems to be a consensus that it likely was derived from the longer name Adowaukeag.  In a story published in a 1923 article in Pragues’s Journal of Maine History, Haverford history professor William Sawtelle provides a clue that Cadillac used the name to refer to a much larger region and not just to Waukeag Neck.  Cadillac’s French translation of Adowaukeag, or Waukeag, was “Douaquet.” A footnote in the story explains that Waukeag did eventually become more localized to refer to “… an old Indian reservation on the east side of Frenchman’s Bay, at Sorrento.”

SAWTELLE'S STORY

Herson refers to several sources for the name, including the "Dictionary of Maine-Place Names," written in 1971, LINK TO BOOK which translates Waukeag as “a seal.”  This same definition was given by R. A. Douglas-Lithgow in his 1909 edition of the “Dictionary of American Indian Names” - LINK TO BOOK

The Sorrento-Sullivan Historical Society goes with the alternate meaning for Waukeag as derived from the Penobscot and Maliseet languages for “horseback” or glacial kame - SSHS

This derivation of Waukeag as a natural glacial formation of a “kame” or more specifically “...a horseback in a place where the tide runs out strong...” is repeated on the Acadia Magic web page and several other places - ACADIA MAGIC

“A kame is a hill or mound of gravel and sand formed by streams on the bottom of slow moving glaciers. When the glaciers melted, they left these deposits throughout Maine. Waukeag meant “a horseback in a place where the tide runs out strong” and referred to the kame in the great tidal stream that fills Sullivan Harbor, Sullivan Falls north through Taunton Bay and Hog Bay in Franklin.”

Herson tells us that this interpretation comes from a University of Maine book “Indian Place-Names of the Maine Coast” published in 1941.  The book was written by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, a writer, ornithologist and folklorist – and early in her career, the superintendent of the Brewer schools and founder of the Brewer public library.  Her Wikipedia entry - ECKSTORM - lists her as among the “…foremost authorities on the history, wildlife, cultures, and lore of the region.”  Eckstrom’s papers at the University of Maine include a number of her letters and lecture notes - ECKSTORM ARCHIVE

In addition to her other professional pursuits, for decades Eckstorm researched Native American place-names in New England.  In notes for a lecture she gave in 1921 on her research on town names in Maine, she writes “…the great trouble with most that has been printed so far is that it is wrong; some of it idiotic, and most of it is incorrect.”  She went on to explain how the native peoples assigned names to places –

“In the old days every brook and stream, every point and cove, every island, but perhaps not every hill, had a name.  They were not arbitrary names like ours; they were not held in perpetuity by maps and printed page; something on the spot itself had to make the name; they had to hit upon some characteristic which would tell the voyager that he had arrived at a certain spot.  We generally got a name that was apt and striking, though it usually took a whole sentence to describe the characteristic.  That is why Indian names are so long.  However, in studying them it is not the long ones that are hard, but the short ones, which have been clipped and corrupted.”

Given Eckstorm’s scholarship in the area, it is no wonder that her interpretation of Waukeag was later cited in the 1970 book “A Concise and Selective Dictionary for the Continental United States of America” by George R. Stewart.

Alice Wellman’s piece on the Native American settlements and archaeological projects, found in Herson’s book, goes with the alternate interpretation of Waukeag, meaning the “Place of Seals.”  Alice has been a huge supporter and trustee of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor and its work to preserve the history and culture of the Native people of Maine - ABBE MUSEUM - and I highly recommend its website to learn more about the Native people of the area.

In addition to the 1901 book I cited earlier, the interpretation of Waukeag meaning “seal” dates as far back as this 1881 edition of the “A Gazetteer of the State of Maine.”  This entry on Sullivan contains some other tidbits on the settlement of interest - GAZETTEER

In addition to those two competing translations for Waukeag, I have found yet another possibility dating to the 1870s.

Published by the 40^th Congress in 1871, the “US Coast Survey” indicates that the name Waukeag originated with the word Wamkeag or Wamkik and may mean a “Shallow Bay.” - COAST SURVEY

So, I leave it to you to decide which interpretation to use, or perhaps as Fannie Hardy Eckstorm would tell us, each of these translations may indeed be all wrong, idiotic, or incorrect.