Passamaquoddy

The Passamaquoddy (Peskotomuhkati or Pestomuhkati in the Passamaquoddy language) are the First Nations (Native American) people who live in northeastern North America, primarily in Maine and New Brunswick. The Passamaquoddy had a purely oral history before the arrival of Europeans, occupied coastal regions along the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine and along the St. Croix River and its tributaries. They dispersed and hunted inland in the winter; in the summer, they gathered more closely together on the coast and islands, and primarily harvested seafood, including porpoise. The name "Passamaquoddy" is an Anglicization of the Passamaquoddy word peskotomuhkati, the prenoun form (prenouns being a linguistic feature of Algonquian languages) of Peskotomuhkat (pestəmohkat), the name they applied to themselves. Peskotomuhkat literally means "pollock-spearer" or "those of the place where pollock are plentiful", reflecting the importance of this fish. Their method of fishing was spear-fishing rather than angling.