And to God Speak Penobscot

Transcription

1 And to God Speak Penobscot VINCENT O. ERICKSON University of New Brunswick In 1833 the House of Picpus, a congregation of the third order of St. Francis, sent Father Louis-Edmond Demillier and Father Amable Petithomme from France "to restore the Franciscan missions in Maine" (J.G. Shea in Pilling 1891:110). The two priests arrived at Eastport, Maine, on September 26, 1833, and hoped to begin immediately their work among the Passamaquoddy at nearby Pleasant Point. Except for short visits to Boston, Nova Scotia and Old Town, Maine, Father Demillier remained among the Passamaquoddy for the remainder of his life. He died at Pleasant Point July 23, Father Amable's stay among the Passamaquoddy was much shorter in duration. The purpose of this paper is to present verbatim Father Demillier's observation on language usage among the native peoples of Acadia and the use of a liturgical language among the Passamaquoddy. As a conclusion I will offer a few speculations on how Demillier influenced the writing and thinking of the later Jesuit missionary priest in Maine, Father Eugene Vetromile. The Letters of Demillier and Petithomme Demillier's published and unpublished letters provide valuable observations on his work in several Eastern Algonquian languages. 1 The first 1 l am grateful to Father Harold Whalen, SsCC, of Mission Hills, California, who called to my attention the letters in Rome, and to Father Henk ter Huurne, secretary of the Fathers of the Sacred Heart, Rome, who made them available to me. I wish to express my thanks to Meredith A. Griffin for providing translation of several of the letters of Father Amable Petithomme and Father Louis-Edmond Demillier, which are deposited in Rome. Another source for Demillier letters is the archives of the Archdiocese of Boston. Nicholas Smith provided copies of these materials for my use and Mrs. Suzanne Warren a translation from the French. I am extremely grateful to each of the above for their 121

2 122 VINCENT O. ERICKSON of these letters written at Pleasant Point was begun in April It was directed to M. Fougeroux, Demillier's uncle, living in France. Most of the other Demillier letters found in Rome were written to the Abbe Coudrin, superior general of the House of Picpus. They extend over a three year period from June 1834 to April Those kept in Boston, directed to his bishop, Benedict Fenwick, cover a time period from February 1835 to January The letters addressed to his uncle and to the superior general are in the archives of the Congregazione dei s. Cuori as part of a collection called Mission de Boston. 2 The letters of Bishop Fenwick are to be found in the archives of the Archdiocese of Boston. What specific information do the letters tell of Demillier's work and observations of the native languages? Thefirstrelevant letter in the collection was written in April 1834, almost five months after the two priests arrived at Pleasant Point. During the previous winter Father Amable had gone into the interior to be with the majority of the tribe, while he, Father Edmond, had remained at Pleasant Point with five or six families, whose children attended his school twice a day. "I benefitted from it," he confessed, "... obliged to live continuously with the Indians, I forced myself to work at the study of language to the exclusion of all other studies" (SsCC:20). As of Palm Sunday 1834, Father Demillier felt himself sufficiently skilled in Passamaquoddy to hear confessions in the language. From that date until May 27, shortly before Corpus Christi, he wrote that he scarcely had a chance to leave the confessional. "They are so pleased when one can say to them some words in their language. But is a bit painful to spend every day weighing syllables and combining sounds to make words and find sense in them" (SsCC:20). Only to master Passamaquoddy, however, would be insufficient (SsCC:20) I am also going to have to study Penobscot, which is here as Latin is for us, the sa language; (and) Mikmak, spoken by a tribe of the same name in New Brunswick, and who have frequent interactions with us. Given Father Edmond's good intentions and apparent respect for the Passamaquoddy, it is surprising that he would make the following erroneous statement: "Their [the Passamaquoddy] language is quite pleasant although formed solely of guttural sounds" (SsCC:20). assistance. 2 A series of abbreviatons have been devised to facilitate the referencing of archival sources used in this paper. SsCC refers to Congregazione dei Ss. Cuori, Casa Generalizia, Rome. A reference such as (SsCC:20) refers to page 20 of Copie des Lettres Autographes in the collection Mission de Boston. MhS refers to Maine Historical Society (Portland); NYPL to the New York Public Library; AB to the Archdiocese of Boston.

3 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 123 Bishop Fenwick of Boston, however, had done what he could to facilitate the work of the two priests. Packed among their luggage was an abridged version of Father Rasles's Abenaki dictionary (Rasles 1833). 3 By the following spring the priests were provided with Father Romagne's (1839) Indian Prayer Book, which was published likely in February About this latter book, ostensibly written in Penobscot, 4 Father Demillier comments "... [it] is full of errors" (SsCC:21). In this same letter Demillier suggests that since Father Romagne was likely still living in the Diocese of Mons, he (Edmond) would very much like to have some of Romagne's manusciptts sent to someone in Boston who could do the proofreading and prepare a corrected version. 5 Two months later Demillier repeated the wish to the Abbe Coutrin (SsCC:47): if "... Father Romagne would wish to make a present to his old pupils of Passamaquoddy Bay the numerous manusciptts which a 25-year-stay among them placed him in a position to write" everyone would benefit from his generosity. 6 Father Amable Petithomme, too, was attempting to learn Passamaquoddy, but recognized Father Edmond's greater proficiency: "... I am begging M. Edmond to mould us an alphabet" (SsCC:34), the problem being that there were no books in Passamaquoddy for the school of 60 pupils, and "... it is rather difficult for a mute [Amable] to keep school for mutes [the Passamaquoddy scholars]. Of the two, Father Demillier was the most active in recording the language. Amable wrote in May 1834, "... all the words which we have 3 Even though the Rasles dictionary bears the publication date of 1833, Father Demilillier may indeed have been provided only with some other version by Bishop Fenwick in Boston in the summer of 1833, that is if he is not confusing Father Romagne with Father Rasles. See footnote 5. 4 The suggestion that Romagne's book was written in Penobscot rather than in Maelcite-Passamaquoddy is based on passages from two letters to which I later refer. The first is Father Amable's complaint that there are no books written in Passamaquoddy (ScCC:34). The second is Father Edmond's statement that he has not yet seen anything printed in Marechitique (SsCC:44). 5 A somewhat enigmatic passage appears in Father Edmond's March 11, 1835 letter to Bishop Fenwick: "Your Grace announced to me last summer that he would send me by means of the petty officer of the Marie Elizabeth, a dictionary written in the hand of Mr. Romagne. It would have helped me a great deal..." (AB:5. Since Demillier makes no mention later of having received the dictionary, it may be that he is confusing Rasles's now published dictionary with the one he incorrectly attributes to Father Romagne. 6 It is not known if either Fougeroux or Coudrin contacted Father Romagne or attempted to obtain his papers for his successors at Pleasant Point. If they did, they appear not ot have had any luck. Neither Amable nor Edmond in later letters discuss making use of them, and neither Vetromile nor O'Brian mention having them (Pilling 1891; NYPL).

4 124 VINCENT O. ERICKSON collected, M. Edmond has written down and we have sent them to the Bishop who has had them printed for us, which is for us a great help" (SsCC:41). 7 As noted earlier, Father Edmond found Rasles's dictionary, which was prepared almost 120 years earlier, not particularly useful. He attributed this to the false assumption that in Rasles's time the language of the Abnakis at Norridgewock was similar enough to Malecite-Passamaquoddy to be comprehensible to the Passamaquoddy. He assumed, however, that in the succeeding century the speech forms of the respective groups had diverged so much that they could not be understood by the other group. In Edmond's words (SsCC:44): The Abenakis while dividing to form several peoples also changed their language. The Penobscots still speak nearly the ancient [form], but the Passamaquoddies only understand them with difficulty. If the everyday language of the Passamaquoddy was Malecite-Passamaquoddy, their liturgical language was Penobscot. Father Edmond observed (SsCC:44): Their prayers are composed all in the Abenaki language or the Penobscot language which they do not speak although they understand it, so that I am obliged to learn two languages instead of one. He incorrectly regarded Passamaquoddy (or Marechitique) as he suggested that the Passamaquoddy and the Saint John River Indians spoke a common language to be a dialect of Abnaki or Penobscot. He was correct, however, in suggesting that in the former group "e" is often found while in cognate forms in Penobscot onefinds "a":... the "a"s dominate in Penobscot or Cannibas and are replaced by "e"s in Mareschitique spoken here by the Passamaquoddies and the Oulastekouieck or natives of the Saint John River... (SsCC:45) In his June 1, 1834, letter to the Abbe Coudrin, Father Edmond wrote that he had not yet seen anything printed in Mareschitique, which, however, was the language to which he was now applying his efforts, because it was the one spoken by the residents of Pleasant Point. In this same letter he wrote that he was beginning to speak Malecite-Passamaquoddy sufficiently well so as not to need an interpreter (SsCC:47). On October 13, 1835, some 25 months afterfirstarriving among the Passamaquoddy, Father Edmond again made a progress report (SsCC:78): 7 If indeed these word lists were printed, none survived at the end of the century when Pilling compiled his annotated bibliography.

5 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 125 I am able to carry out my business with my Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Oulastekeks so that I am able to understand them, to confess them and even to scold them sometimes in the church. I do not yet have mastery over the language... Their language is extremely poor for things which touch on the spiritual. An early letter which Father Edmond wrote to Bishop Fenwick of March 11, 1835 (AB:4) concerns the necessity of learning English: Up till now I have been devoted to my study of the native language, and I do not know more English now, than when I was in Boston. I will have to appoint someone to speak English to me. It will be necessary that I return to teaching a language that I do not know [i.e., English], The reason for this concern was that the secular political authorities would provide funds to educate the Passamaquoddies only if instruction was in English. If Demillier had little facility in English, his Passamaquoddy pupils had considerable facility in Latin. This provides verification for Deacon Sockabason's (Erickson 1986:124) complaint that indeed Father Demillier was instructing his pupils in Latin. Demillier (AB:5) wrote: "Many have a surprising grasp and read the Latinfluentlyat the beginning of the book." Their skill in reading the prayers in the Romagne Indian Prayer Book, however, must have left something to be desired (AB:5): I have tried to have them read Indian prayers that they have in the little book, the mistakes they slide into make their reading unintelligible, and I was forced to stop for the moment. In this same letter to Bishop Fenwick (March 11, 1835), Father Edmond told of his attempt to write materials in Penobscot (AB:5): I have succeeded in writing down some [prayers] that are in usage here. I do not believe that they are very correct, but for this I have employed several of the most intelligent natives. It will be necessary to receive again the Penobscots, themselves, as at least that is the language in which the prayers were composed, and they are the ones having the skill. They slide in a large number of variants and also some words of the Mareschits which are replacing the Penobscot words in large numbers. The next report of Father Edmond's success comes from a letter of September This time it is from the pen of Father Amable who was at that time on none too friendly terms with his colleague (SsCC:95-96): He (Father Edmond) collects all the manusciptts of the Penobscots, the Passamaquo dies and the Micmaks three languages absolutely different; the one is Canibat, the other Abnakis, the other Mickmak and of all the manusciptts not one agrees with [the others]; as all the languages are not written, each has its spelling; he does not understand [even] one of the languages, he is making a compelation of all the

6 126 VINCENT O. ERICKSON languages, he puts down marks like in Hebrew: in such a way that no,p* «* willbe able to understand what he wanted to say and no one will want to.study a language, which is becoming absolutely useless, there are no longer any savages but wandering persons among a civilized people, and who speak the *»» - these people. Here it is 150 years that the Jesuits have evangelized this country, if they had seen that it was good to print this language it would have been done. One month later (October 29, 1836), Demillier himself wrote of his work at Pleasant Point, this time to Bishop Fenwick (AB:7): At present I spend my time working on their catechism. I have procured some Mikmak notebooks that I am transcribing at present, and that I would like to translate. He remained concerned about his need to learn English (AB:8): I will have the intention, if Your Grace permits me, to spend a few days each week this winter in Eastport in order to facilitate my studies in English, as I would be obliged to speak it there. Father Demillier is candid in expressing his problems with English (AB:8): 9 I have noticed a few words in my books, but as soon as I hear them pronounced, I do not remember them. I am all out of touch. In this case it is because of my fears. The last of the letters of Father Demillier included in the Mission de Boston is the one of April 12, 1837, to the Abbe Coudrin. In this he refers specifically to his work involving the Micmac notebooks (SsCC: ): I know it enough to make myself understood, to preach a little and to confess them... but I do not yet possess it enough to respond to the wishes of Monsignor, who presses me to write a catechism in the Penobscot language and to rewrite their prayers and their hymns, all in the same language. Although they have a lot of words to express the ordinary language, they have only very few of them for spiritual things and often none at all I am obliged to borrow them from other tribes which surround us who are the Indians of Saint John... the Mikmaques and the Indians of St. Francis in Canada, 8 Father Edmond's classification of the Eastern Algonquian languages is clearly superior to that of Father Amable. Passamaquoddy is less "Abenaki" than Penobscot is. If Amable had written "the one is Canniba or Abenaki, the other Mareschitique, the other Mickmak" his classification would parallel Father Demillier's. This letter among other documents contributed to Father Amable's excommunication from the church. 9 My assumption (Erickson 1985:102) that Sockabason's evaluation of Father Demillier's skill in English was too negative in tone is a disjustice to Sockabason. Father Whalen has suggested to me in a personal communication that he has no evidence that Father Demillier ever wrote English. The English letter in the Maine State Archives to which I referred was in fact a translation made by the archives's staff.

7 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 127 these are those whose idioms are most related to ours. For nearly a year to teach myself a little I was obliged to transcribe an enormous catechism, the translation of the summary of the Historical Catechism of Fleury and a collection of prayers, of psalms and of hymns, as well as a grammar, all in the Mikmaque language. This work is not useless. I learn from it every day a large number of words, to which I have only to make slight changes to make them intelligible here and make them absolutely Passamaquoddy or Penobscot, it is very difficult work to have to decipher old manusciptts in a language that one does not understand... Our Indians having only their memory for depository of their prayers and their hymns, written by the first Jesuit missionaries who taught them the Gospel, passing from mouth to mouth... it underwent such alterations, that much is no longer understood by anyone. On the same date Father Edmond wrote Bishop Fenwick. Here he made no mention of the Micmac manusciptts, but of his attempts to obtain better versions of the Penobscot prayers (AB:10): During the whole winter there have not been more than three or four families who I have been able to work with on the prayers. When those who can help me return from the hunt, I will be obliged to improve almost all the prayers. In their present state many of them are almost unintelligible even to the Penobscots, in whose language they were written. The next report came ten months later (February 19, 1838). Written at Pleasant Point, it reflects Demillier's attitude to the language of instruction at Pleasant Point school (AB:15): They are filled with good intentions to learn, to sing or to read Latin or their language. They do not want to hear anything spoken about an English school. I have tried many times and always unsuccessfully to introduce English. They always respond by telling me that the biggest mistake for their children would be to learn to read English, and to speak it... Whether these sentiments were wholly the Passamaquoddies' or whether they contain a portion of wishful thinking on Demillier's part cannot be determined from the evidence available. In this same letter Father Edmond speaks of his progress in translating liturgical works into Passamaquoddy. His choice of medium, however, is Penobscot (AB:14): I am involved increasingly with the Indian catechism. I found that there is a Qu one translated in the Abenaquis language, the dialect of the St. Francis natives. There are so many differences in our languages that it cannot help. I have translated it into Passamaquoddy, but... it would be of greater utility if it were printed in Penobscot. The latter is the native language here and is much easier to write and pronounce. In ours (Malecite-Passamaquoddy) there are some sounds that are almost impossible to render in ordinary letters. I have again returned to the hymns and prayers and feel that I have reached the point where they are written in the most correct manner possible. I have done more than sixty which have not yet been printed.

8 128 VINCENT O. ERICKSON The possibility remains that Demillier's prejudice for Penobscot vis-a-vis Malecite-Passamaquoddy reflects the fact that the most complete versions were obtained from sources originally translated either in Penobscot, Canniba or Western Abnaki (St. Francis Abnaki) rather than in Malecite-Passamaquoddy, and that the informants who could work most successfully with Father Demillier were either Penobscot speakers or persons who had learned the liturgical works in one of the Abnaki dialects rather than in Malecite-Passamaquoddy. Demillier's statement that these works could not be rendered in Malecite-Passamaquoddy may have been an excuse for not continuing in the task. Demillier's favouring Penobscot as the liturgical language is also reflected in his letter to Bishop Fenwick of October 18, One short passage expresses the point clearly (AB:20): I encounter many prayers every day that have not been recorded in print and that are only preserved in the memories of the old people. Many are full of unction. Not many people know them. The Penobscot appear to have the best memories and I regret not being able to collect all of them. Father Edmond's final comment in writing of the linguistic situation among the native people of Maine is from a letter written from Old Town about six months before his death. It describes his experiences at Old Town (AB:28):... during the holidays I have preached morning and night in the native language and in French. Speaking another language than theirs, I did not think I would be understood, and I was very surprised tofindthey understood me... especially the young children. If indeed this observation is correct, the Penobscot used in 1843 was more similar to the Malecite-Passamaquoddy of that date than late 17th century Canniba was to early 19th century Malecite-Passamaquoddy. Discussion The letters of Fathers Demillier and Petithomme tell us much about the use of proficiency of both the liturgical and non-liturgical languages at Pleasant Point in the 1830's. How compatible are these descriptions with other evidence available? Pilling s Algonquian bibliography (1891) and Vetromile's letters (NYPL) provide complementary data. The Pilling bibliography provides commentary on and lists manusciptt sources which are in large part no longer accessible. The Vetromile letters were written in 1875 to a colleague Father Fenotti who had requested of Vetromile information about sources on Algonquian languages of Maine and the Maritime provinces

9 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 129 Pilling lists six Demillier items in his Algonquian bibliography. The first of these need not detain us because it is the published version of Demillier's letter to his uncle, M. Fougeroux, dated April 20, This letter was published in Paris in 1835 in the Annates de la Propagation de la Foi (8: ). Pilling's second entry under the rubric "Demillier" is A Catechisme en Langue Mikmake. This must be the "Fleury catechism" on which Demillier had said he was working. Demillier dated his manusciptt June 22, 1836, but this must represent the starting date and not the completion date. 10 It consisted of 339 pages of text. Pilling (1891:110) questioned whether Demillier himself composed the work, suggesting that its early date (1836) indicated that it was a copy and not an original work. Pilling's hunch has been proven correct by Demillier's own words, as seen in his letters of October 29, 1836 and April 12, 1837, to which I have referred above. Fleury's catechism, published in 1679, may well have been translated into Micmac by Father Maillard who was among the Micmac of Cape Breton Island from 1735 to 1762 (Wallis and Wallis 1955:13). Father Eugene Vetromile suggests that Demillier made use of Father Maillard's Micmac materials. Erroneously calling Father Maillard "Father Menard," he suggests that Maillard's catechism was "... a fine work, excellent and in very correct Micmac..." (NYPL). The third item listed under "Demillier" is Dictionary of the Etchimin language. No date is given for this manusciptt of 57 pages. Vetromile (1866:27, 50) quotes from it in his work, The Abenakis and their History, and Father O'Brian, in writing to Pilling, comments that "Father Vetromile is supposed to have had the dictionary at the time of his death..." (quoted in Pilling 1891:110). This and most other Demillier manusciptts referred to by Pilling can no longer be found. Perhaps the word list to which Father Petithomme refers in his 1834 letter form a part of the dictionary; perhaps another source is the "Romagne" dictionary which Bishop Fenwick may have provided Father Demillier sometime after March 11, 1835; perhaps the dictionary is a compilation made by Demillier, himself, over his tenyear stay at Pleasant Point. Undoubtedly, the origins of the dictionary are multiple. The fourth andfifthdemillier items listed by Pilling refer to a complete as well as partial copy of Essais de Grammaire Miquemaque, dated November 1, The complete copy was in Vetromile's possession. He lent it to Dr. J.G. Shea. In Shea's words (Pilling 1891:110), "... Vetromile 10 This is based on the evidence in Demillier's April 12, 1837 letter to the Abbe Cout in which he wrote that he had been on this task for nearly a year, and from his October 29, 1836 letter to Bishop Fenwick in which he wrote that he was transcribing this Micmac material at present.

10 130 VINCENT O. ERICKSON... reclaimed it almost immediately, before I had time to copy more than a few pages." Vetromile's copy is item four; Shea's partial copy is item five in Pilling. Father Vetromile's (NYPL) view of the incident differs considerably from Shea's: Mr. Shea once requested me to print an extract of the Micmac grammar from a manusciptt in my possession. I let him do it. He corrected the proof sheet, himself, and when I saw a copy of his small extract, it was so incorrect and disfigured; that that edition is an outrage to the ather [sic] of the grammar, which is valuable and correct work of Fr. Menard [sic], as I believe. Father Vetromile's assumption that the work is Maillard's is almost certainly correct. As Demillier indicated in his letter of April 12, 1837, he was working on this grammar. Demillier's contribution appears, however, only in having transcribed it, a task which he said was made difficult because it was done "... in a language which one does not understand." Demillier's reason for transcribing the grammar was to learn words "... to which I have only to make slight changes... to make them absolutely Passamaquoddy or Penobscot..." Demillier's goal in copying the grammar was to facilitate his own learning of Passamaquoddy and Penobscot. The final item in the Pilling bibliography listed for Demillier is a 57- page manusciptt entitled [Prayers and Hymns in the Passamaquoddy language.] The title is problematic as the contents may be in Penobscot rather than in Passamaquoddy. From Demillier's letter of February 19, 1838, there is evidence that indeed it is written in Passamaquoddy, since Father Edmond wrote that he had been involved in translating a catechism from the language of the St. Francis Abnakis into Passamaquoddy. From earlier sources, March 11, 1835, and April 12, 1837, and from a later source, October 18, 1839, we learn that his efforts had been to make translations into Penobscot. Moreover, since thefinalten pages of Prayers and Hymns in the Passamaquoddy language are entitled Cabattem8i ghekimsoie, which is almost certainly a miscopying of Pabattem8i ghekimsoie "Christian book of learning" and according to Pilling (1891:110) is a Penobscot catechism, it is possible that the majority if not the total corpus of the manusciptt is in Penobscot rather than Passamaquoddy. In 1891 the work was in the possession of Rev. M.C. O'Brian, St. Mary's Church, Bangor, Maine. Pilling (1891:110) notes that he has seen it. Its present whereabouts, however, is unknown. An additional catechism in Vetromile's possession appears to have been unknown to Pilling. It is the eight page manusciptt, Prieres en langue sauvage, which is among the items in the Vetromile collection in the library

11 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 131 of the Maine Historical Society in Portland. This is likely the item to which Vetromile refers in his January 19, 1875 letter to Father Fenotti (NYPL):... the holy Missionary Fr. Demilier at Pleasant Point... made... a good translation in Passamaquoddy of the petit catechism pour la diocese de Quebec. He prepared a neat copy to be printed but he died before it was put to the press. This manusciptt is in my possession. Whether this source was written in Passamaquoddy or not, however, is also problematic. One item, the Lord's Prayer, for example, is written in Penobscot rather than Passamaquoddy (Erickson 1987). Since Vetromile makes no note of the longer (57 page) Demillier catechism and hymn book in his letter to Fenotti, it is likely that he was not aware of its existence. According to Pilling (1891:110), the 57-page manusciptt contains notations bearing two different dates. One is the signature of Louis Edmond Demillier: his place of residence, Pleasant Point, is given in English while the date, April 30, 1841, is given in French. This may be the date when Father Demillier completed the work. The second entry carries the year 1839 and is written in Malecite-Passamaquoddy by a woman named Margueritte Joseph Marie. 11 A translation of her passage may mean: "in order that there might be a Christian book, now in the current year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine; or in the whiteman's counting He surely having made it, Father Edmond Demillier, Indian Priest." The sources used by Demillier to prepare the 57-page manusciptt were likely multiple. He may have reworked Maillard's Micmac manusciptt, the St. Francis Abnaki catechism, or Romagne's Indian Prayer Book, in addition to possibly new sources which he had obtained from Penobscot speakers. Vetromile, however, felt that the basis of the work, the eight page version, was Romagne's. Demillier simply "corrected" the earlier work and made several additions. Evidence that Vetromile was referring to the eightpage "Prieres" is evident from the following passage in his letter to Fenotti (NYPL): I find (sic) those prayers and catechism of Fr. Romagne, and corrected by Fr. De ilier, in some very oldflyingpapers, and the writer (anonimous) (sic) says that he 11 Margueritte's transcription is as follows (Pilling 1891:110): Nya Margueritte Joseph Marie h8tchi pabattemi sikhighen, i8te pemighetek Nec8tamk8ak oquemoltsin sessaktek8 usinsk tsel esk8nakek; kessena tedebi8 8enots8hi ghitm8aghen Kisi t8naissa P. Edmond Demillier Alnambie Patliano. Fr. Edmond Demillier. Dr. Peter Paul of Woodstock, New Brunswick, suggests that hstchi pabattemi sikhighen is to be translated 'the relgion which I follow is not easy'. My translation is based on the assumption that sikhighen is a misreading of wikhighen 'book' by a later copyist.

12 132 VINCENT O. ERICKSON wrote them under the dictation of the Indians, but those in Passamaquoddy were copied from an old paper of an Indian called Sacobison. As I reported in other publications (Erickson 1986; 1987), this Demillier manusciptt (MHS), if indeed the anonymous author was Demillier, must have been prepared very early during his stay among the Passamaquoddy, likely even before Bishop Fenwick printed the Romagne book in the early months of Even earlier Sockabason, the Passamaquoddy deacon, had made a copy of a part of Romagne's manusciptt or had possibly obtained the same from Romagne. These papers he leant to Demillier sometime between the fall of 1833 and the spring of Sockabason's version of the Lord's Prayer (Erickson 1987) is practically identical to that of Romagne (1834) and is not written in Malecite-Passamaquoddy but in Penobscot. Vetromile (NYPL) suggested that the source of the copybook may be considerably older than from Romagne's tenure at Pleasant Point: I first thought that they were written by Fr. Rasles, but when I was in Worcester a small old man: prayer book of 62 pages 22 was found amongst some old papers and books for sale. A friend... made a present of it to me. I found it to be a manual of prayers and catechism in Abnaki language, written by Fr. Francis Ciquard, missionary in New Brunswick, written in Vetromile denied that either Father Ciquard or Father Rasles could be the author of the manusciptt because neither of them knew the language sufficiently well in the year Vetromile is partially correct about Ciquard but totally wrong about Rasles. Father Ciquard, indeed, could not have prepared a new translation by 1792, but he could have easily recopied an earlier work and applied his own name to it. 12 Vetromile is almost 100 years off in his discussion of Rasles's work among the Abnaki at Norridgewock. Lapomarda (1977:8) is correct: "... Father Rale came to the Kennebec for a couple of years after his arrival in Quebec in 1689 and returned in 1693 to spend the rest of his life among the Abnakis at Norridgewock." The details of his death on August 23, 1724, are well known. Rasles's long stay among the Abnaki and the sophistication of his dictionary certainly suggest that he was capable of preparing a translation of hymns, prayers and a catechism in Abnaki as well. Other than a translation of 0 Salutaris Hostia in Abnaki, however, none of these works has been preserved. Father Francis Ciquard, for example,firstworked for ten years among the Penobscot ( ). Next he served the Miliseets of New Brunswick before going to Quebec to serve the Abnakis at St. Francis between 1812 and 1815 (Pilling 1891:557).

13 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 133 With respect to the 1792 manusciptt, however, Vetromile concludes (NYPL): "... these prayers, and catechism are very old and their author is not known. I have scrupulously preserved them, corrected and embodied in my prayer book, not allowing a single alteration." For starts, as potential authors he could have suggested the Bigot brothers, Father de la Chasse, Father de Syresme, Father Aubrey, Father Lauverjat, Father Loyard, Father Danielou, Father Germain and Father La Brosse (see Lapomarda ). Interpretive Conclusion Whatever his other merits, for example his modesty, his dedication to his work, and his obvious respect for the Passamaquoddy, Father Demillier's contribution to the study of Eastern Algonquian linguistics is not as great as his manusciptt production might suggest. His works on Micmac are taken from the papers of Maillard, and those on the other Eastern Algonquian languages are heavily dependent upon Romagne and his predecessors. The Dictionary of the Etchimin language may have been his most original and valuable work, as it could provide insights as to how Passamaquoddy was spoken in the 1830s. The religious works likely have lesser utility, primarily because they do not represent the everyday language of the people to whom they are attributed. 13 The prestige of Penobscot as a liturgical language was so great, at least among the Passamaquoddy, that the prayers and hymns of the church were used in that language rather than in Malecite-Passamaquoddy, the language they habitually spoke. The prayers which Father Demillier transcribed from the speech of his informants reveal the influence of Penobscot both in pronunciation and orthography. While Demillier does not use the 8 to represent the w or o, he indicates the nasalization of the a by the insertion of the n or m following the vowel. Sometimes he adds an umlaut over the n as well. Demillier sought out Penobscot speakers as his informants at Pleasant Point because their versions of the prayers were closer to those found in the manusciptts of the earlier priests. Sockabason, the deacon of the Pleasant Point church at this time, is said to have had a Penobscot mother and an Iroquois father. While Sockabason and Father Demillier were not always on good terms, at least the communication ties between the two were sufficient for Demillier to borrow Sockabason's notebook and to copy from it the prayers. Perhaps Sockabason served as Demillier's informant, perhaps he did not. We will likely never know. If not Sockabason, it could have been 13 It is possible that some of the mistakes in which Father Demillier says his pupils fell in reading the "Penobscot" prayers were attempts the children made to render the prayers intellible in Malecite-Passamaquoddy.

14 134 VINCENT O. ERICKSON any number of other residents at Pleasant Point who had been accustomed to saying their prayers and singing their hymns in Penobscot. 14 Likely Penobscot had been used as the religious language at Pleasant Point from at least the time of Father Romagne's arrival there of in Father Romagne's materials were written in Penobscot (Canniba) as were those of his predecessors on the Penobscot and Kennebec Rivers. These findings explain a great deal as to why Father Vetromile attributed the provenience of hymns and prayers according to the tribal designations he did. He followed the erroneous assumption that the provenience of a manusciptt represents the language of the people who had last used it. For example, if a manusciptt comes from the Passamaquoddy it must represent the Passamaquoddy language. His problem is compounded by virtue of the fact that he utilized manusciptts extending over a time frame of 100 years or more. Moreover, he tended to group together all manusciptts which came from a given community as being equally representative of the language spoken there. All too rarely does he come to our assistance by calling one work Old Maliseet, Old Passamaquoddy or Old Penobscot. Finally, the movement of the same priest from one ethnic group to another, even if it took place within the Eastern Algonquian linguistic speech area, could not but add further confusion as to the origin of the works in question. If Penobscot was recognized as the religious language by not only the Penobscot but also the Maliseet and the Passamaquoddy, a priest would have no qualms about continuing to use religious manusciptts written in Penobscot, even though his parishioners on Passamaquoddy Bay or the Saint John River could understand these works only with difficulty. In closing "and to God speak Penobscot" becomes even more relevant when we return to the message which Margueritte Joseph Marie wrote in Demillier's manusciptt in There are only two examples of the nasalization of the a in this passage, Alnambie Pailiano (almost certainly a misreading by some later writer of Patlians "Indian Priest"), the final two words used to refer specifically to Father Demillier. Margueritte, who wrote everything else in Passamaquoddy, must have had such respect for her priest that even in referring to him she used Penobscot words, or if the words were similar to those in Malecite-Passamaquoddy, she gave them a "Father Edmond refers to the Penobscot influence among the counsellors and other leaders to the Pleasant Point community in his letter to Bishop Fenwick of February 18, 1835: "the governor, John Francis, and his wife fulfill their functions. His advisors are Sacco Basson and his wife, the sister of John Francis; Stanislas and his wife, the first cousin of John Francis' wife; Joseph Lola, called Tekouette (Tekouesse?), his wife and his mother, John Francis' sister. Out of this group, three women belong to the Penobscot tribe, and are close to John Neptune's family..."

15 AND TO GOD SPEAK PENOBSCOT 135 Penobscot pronunciation. REFERENCES AB = Archdiocese of Boston. Boston, Massachusetts Erickson, Vincent O. Letters of Louis-Edmond Demillier. Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, n.d. [February 18, 1835?] pp Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, March 11, 1835, pp Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, October 29, 1836, pp Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, April 12, 1837, pp Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, February 19, 1838, pp Demillier to Fenwick, Pleasant Point, October 18, 1839, pp Demillier to Fenwick, Old Town, January 6, 1843, pp Passamaquoddies and Protestants: Deacon Sockabason and the Reverend Kellogg of the Society for Propagating the Gospel. Man in the Northeast 29: An Update on Deacon Sockabason: Views from the House of Picpus. Pp in Actes du Dix-septieme Congres des Algonquinistes, William Cowan, ed. Ottawa: Carleton University Father Demillier's Versions of the Lord's Prayer. In Papers from the Meeting of the Atlantic Provinces Linguistic Association, Murray Kinlo et al., eds. University of New Brunswick, Fredericton [in press]. MHS = Maine Historical Society. Portland, Maine Lapomarda, Vincent A. Eugene Vetromile Papers, Manuscript Collections, No. 114, Box 1/16 Edmond Demillier's Prieres en langue sauvage, telles que nous ler [si avons recueillies nous-mimes sous leur dictee The Jesuit Heritage in New England. Worcester, Mass.: The Jesuits of Holy Cross College, Inc. NYPL = New York Public Library. New York Manuscripts and Archives Division. Indian-Abnaki folder. Letter of E. Vetromile to P. Finotti, Eastport, January 19, Pilling, James C Bibliography of Algonquian Languages. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 13. Washington, D.C. Rasles, Sebastien 1833 A Dictionary of the Abnaki Language, in North America. Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, n.s., nol. 1. Cambridge, Mass.

16 136 VINCENT O. ERICKSON Romagne, James B The Indian Prayer Book. Boston: H.L. Devereux. SsCC Congregazione dei Ss. Cuori, Casa Generaliza, Rome Vetromile, Eugene Mission de Boston (044)-Copte des Lettres Autographes #9 Demillier to M. Fougeroux, Pleasant Point, April 20, 1834, pp #10 Petithomme to Coudrin, n.p. [Boston] n.d. [May 1834], pp #11 Demillier to Coudrin, Pleasant Point, June 1, 1834, pp #28 Demillier to Coudrin, Pleasant Point, October 13, 1835, pp #35A Petithomme to Coudrin, Indian Old Town (Maine), September 1836, pp #39 Demillier to Coudrin, Pleasant Point, April 12, 1837, pp The Abenakis and Their History, or Historical Notices on the Aborigines of Acadia. New York: J.B. Kirker. Wallis, Wilson, D., and Ruth S. Wallis 1955 The Micmac Indians of Eastern Canada. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.