Wabanaki
/ˌwɑːbəˈnɑːki/noun
A collective name for several Indigenous peoples in northeastern North America, especially in present-day Maine and the Canadian Maritimes.
Did you know?The name is built from a word for ‘dawn’ or ‘east,’ so it literally marks a people identified with the sunrise and the eastern horizon.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Algonquian
PA
*wa·pan
“dawn; east”
Proto-Algonquian
PA
*aki
“land; earth”
Early Wabanaki languages
Algonquian
wabanaki
“dawn-land people / people of the east”
17th Century
English
Wabanaki
“a collective ethnonym for northeastern Algonquian-speaking peoples”
Modern English
English
Wabanaki
“the Wabanaki peoples and their confederacy”