A vocabulary request for witch comes from Raven Dee in our Facebook group. There are a lot of different ideas and opinions throughout history about what a witch is or should be; and Algonquian languages have many ways to describe spiritual, magical, or powerful people. For our purposes, today, we’re talking about the stereotypical Hallowe’en witch, so words for traditional people of power are not going to be appropriate. But there is one term which seems to fit: maamtana’kaat ‘one who works evil’. It’s also easy to extrapolate a good witch: waawnana’kaat ‘one who works good’.

Below I’ve written up a quick report on how Mohican and some other Algonquian languages describe people of power. If you’re just looking for a word for witch, maamtana’kaat will do. If you want to dig deeper into Mohican written documentation and etymology, or you’d like to see the process how we came up with this word, read on…

In the written Mohican sources

Avery Miller in an early 20th century source document gives the word manitow as witch/she-witch. Looking at this word manitow in other written Mohican sources, we can find other meanings such as Waantheet Manitow Great/Good Spirit from Arvid Miller (20th century) and Aupaumut (18th century), or God in Barton (18th century).

It’s helpful to look across other Algonquian languages for cognates (words that stem from the same ancient source as manitow). From these related languages we can get a potentially wider perspective on a Mohican word.

  • Menominee: mana͞etōw ‘animal spirit (other than bird)’
  • Meskwaki: manetôwa ‘manitou, spirit, god, monster, snake’
  • Munsee: manútoow ‘spirit’
  • Myaamia: manetoowa ‘spirit, being with spiritual powers’
  • Nanticoke: mannǃ-itt ‘god’
  • Odawa: mnidoo ‘spirit, supernatural being’
  • Ojibwe, Minnesota: manidoo ‘a manitou, spirit, god’
  • Penobscot: mànəto ‘evil spirit, devil’
  • Unami: manëtu ‘spirit (refers to a spirit being, not the spirit of a deceased person)’
  • Wampanoag: manit~manitto ‘god’

So manitow has a broad meaning of spirit. Perhaps the original meaning of spirit changed over time to a different connotation (such as in Penobscot), or manitow refers to spirits as well as those people who are close with spirits.

Related Languages

Let’s look again to related Algonquian languages to discover how each translates a witch or witch-adjacent people.

Passamaquoddy-Maliseet

  • motewolon~ptewolon ‘person with extraordinary spiritual power, shaman’ ‘spiritual power’
  • wahantoluhket ‘one who practices witchcraft or magic or sorcery, one who does the devil’s work’

Penobscot

  • mətewələ́noskwe ‘witch, sorceress, female shaman’

Abenaki

  • medawlinno~medawinno ⁅na⁆ ‘person with power, shaman, sorcerer’

Wampanoag

  • kôsukquom ‘witch’
  • pauwau ‘a wizard, witch, sorcerer’ pauwásq ‘witch, sorceress’
  • mamontam ‘a diviner, a wizard’ monetuonk ‘divination’, mamontumꝏonk ‘enchantment’,

Narragansett

  • maunêtu ʹa conjurer’

Unami

  • nuchihëwe~nuchihëwès ⁅na⁆ ‘witch’  lit ‘people hunter’
  • nuchihëweokàn ‘witchcraft’

Munsee

  • kiimóoxweew ⁅na⁆ ‘witch’ ← secret walker

Odaawa/Eastern Ojibwe

  • meko-bmasenh~-bmaset ⁅na⁆ ‘witch, bear-walker’

Plains Cree

  • kīskwēhkan iskwew ⁅na⁆ ‘witch, mentally ill woman’
  • powākan iskwew ⁅na⁆ ‘witch, guardian spirit woman’
  • mamahtāwisiwinihk ⁅ni⁆ ‘witchery, spirit power’

Observations

  • Narragansett gives a very similar interpretation of maunêtu ‘a conjurer’ as Avery Miller’s manitow ‘witch’. Wampanoag has mamontam which is similar but has an extra first syllable (repeating the ma-).
  • Penobscot, Passamaquoddy-Maliseet, and Abenaki use an initial root for someone with spiritual power that has an equivalent in Mohican mitaaw-. This root is ubiquitous in Algonquian languages, such as Ojibwe mide(w)- and Unami mëte‑. Mohican for ‘person with with spiritual powers’ would be mdaawoxkwaw (female) and mdaaweennow (male).
  • Passamaquoddy-Maliseet has ‘one who does the devil’s work’. Mohican similarly has maamtana’kaat ‘the one who works evil’.
  • Unami’s ‘people-hunter’ calqued (translated piece-by-piece) into Mohican is kweenawaw, but this is more like ‘seeker’ or ‘searcher’ (it’s perhaps not so idiomatic as it seems to be in Unami).
  • Odaawa and Munsee terms are much more easily calqued: maxkwooxaw ‘bear-walker’ and keemooxaw ‘secret-walker’ respectively.
  • The Cree term powākan iskwew and Wampanoag pauwau may refer to dream power. Cree pawākan is a ‘dream spirit’. I don’t know of any related Mohican word.