ther necessaries of life. The portion of the
tribe at Becancour presents a still more degraded condition. There
remain but thirty families, in all one hundred and seventy-two
individuals. They still remain Roman Catholics, have no schools, and
seem to have reached the extreme of misery and destitution, and so
completely have this people intermixed, that their missionary writes,
"he does not know of a single pure Abenaki among them."

The vocabulary now published is copied from a small volume printed about
thirty years ago, entitled "Wobanaki Kimzowi Awighigan," i.e. Abenaki
Spelling Book. It was procured by the writer with much difficulty, as it
was the only copy that could be obtained among them. It is supposed by
those qualified to judge, to be a fair specimen of the dialect formerly
spoken on the Androscoggin and Kennebec, although there are in it many
words originally borrowed from the French and English. From a
memorandum made when with them a few years since, the name of their
tribe, as near as can be written and pronounced in English, is
W'Banankee, accenting the last syllable.

The treaties, now for the first time printed, are copied from the
original in the possession of the writer; they will be perused with
pleasure by those interested in antiquarian researches. But at the
present day it is difficult to realize the interest which these
proceedings and documents excited; they were often considered almost a
matter of life or death to the frontier settlers. It is apparent that
every chief had then his peculiar totem, or symbol. At a later period
this system was abandoned, and they used only a simple cross. Among the
chiefs who signed, is to be found the totem of Bombazeen and some
others, whose names are perpetuated in history for their bloody
exploits. The autographs annexed show the names of men then prominent in
both provinces, and some of them afterwards attained the highest
positions in political life.

The vocabularies and treaties are now submitted for publication by
request of the Maine Historical Society.

BOSTON, AUGUST, 1859.

EXTRACTS FROM A SPELLING-BOOK IN THE ABENAKI LANGUAGE.

PUBLISHED IN BOSTON IN 1830, AND CALLED "KIMZOWI AWIGHIGAN,"
THE LAST WORD BEING THE TERM FOR BOOK.

The sounds of the vowels are represented in English according to the
following scheme.

_Vowels._ _Sounded._

A a as _a_ in father, psalm.
E e as _e_ in