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Updated: May 7, 2025
Tahmunt thought that the whites called it Moosehead Lake, because Mount Kineo, which commands it, is shaped like a moose's head, and that Moose River was so called "because the mountain points right across the lake to its mouth." John Josselyn, writing about 1673, says, "Twelve miles from Casco Bay, and passable for men and horses, is a lake, called by the Indians Sebug.
When I awoke in the morning the weather was drizzling. One of the Indians was lying outside, rolled in his blanket, on the opposite side of the fire, for want of room. Joe had neglected to awake my companion, and he had done no hunting that night. Tahmunt was making a cross-bar for his canoe with a singularly shaped knife, such as I have since seen other Indians using.
At length, getting my meaning, they alternately repeated the word over to themselves, as a philologist might, Sebamook, Sebamook, now and then comparing notes in Indian; for there was a slight difference in their dialects; and finally Tahmunt said, "Ugh!
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." 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.
Tahmunt said, that there were more moose here than in the Adirondack country in New York, where he had hunted; that three years before there were a great many about, and there were a great many now in the woods, but they did not come out to the water. It was of no use to hunt them at midnight, they would not come out then. I asked Sabattis, after he came home, if the moose never attacked him.
I found that he could write his name very well, Tahmunt Swasen. One Ellis, an old white man of Guilford, a town through which we passed, not far from the south end of Moosehead, was the most celebrated moose-hunter of those parts. Indians and whites spoke with equal respect of him.
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." Mattawamkeag was a place where two rivers meet.
We lay awake thus a long while talking, and they gave us the meaning of many Indian names of lakes and streams in the vicinity, especially Tahmunt. I asked the Indian name of Moosehead Lake. Joe answered, Sebamook; Tahmunt pronounced it Sebemook. When I asked what it meant, they answered, Moosehead Lake.
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