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Abenaki Ethnic Relations
Ethnic
relations, In
his tentative arrangement Brinton ( Len. Leg., 11, 1885) brings into
one group the Nascapee, Micmac, Malecite, Etchimin, and Abnaki, but this
is more of a geographic than a linguistic grouping. Vetromile (Abnaki, 20,
1866), following other authors, says that we should "embrace under this
term all the tribes of the Algic [Algonquian] family, who occupy or have
occupied the east or northeast shore of North America; thus, all the
Indians of the seashores, from Virginia to Nova Scotia, were Abnaki."
Maurault gives the following as the principal tribes of the Abnaki
confederacy:
Kanibesinnoak (Norridgewock in part;
see Kennebec and Norridgewock)
Patsuiket (Sokoki in part)
Nurhantsuak ( Norridgewock)
Etemankiak (Etchimin)
Sokouakiak (Sokoki )
Pentagoet ( Penobscot)
Ouarastegouiak (Malecite)
The name Abnaki being applied in the restricted sense to
the Indians of Kennebec River. All these tribes spoke substantially the
same language, the chief dialectal differences being between the Etchimin
and the other tribes of the group. The Etchimin, who formed a subgroup of
the Abnaki confederacy, included the Passamaquoddy and Malecite. Linguistically the Abnaki do not appear to he more closely related to the Micmac than to the Delaware group, and Dr William Jones finds the Abnaki
closely related to the central Algonquian languages. In customs and
beliefs they are more nearly related to the Micmac, and their ethnic
relations appear to he with the tribes north of the St Lawrence.
Source: Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Frederick Webb Hodge, 1906
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