Begin at Augusta City Center (16 Cony Street) behind Fort Western on the bank of the Kennebec
River. Across the water you see the back side of Water Street, which is part of present-day downtown Augusta. Some nineteenth century buildings remain and offer a pleasant image of an earlier century.

Women of the Abenaki tribe were the first women to inhabit the Kennebec River area where the city of Augusta now stands. The name Abenaki derives from the Algonquin term Wabanakiak meaning "people living in the land of the dawn." Today, all American Indian tribes in Maine are collectively identified as Wabanaki (derived from Wabanakiak) because of related Algonquin languages and certain common cultural traditions and beliefs. However, the sovereignty and group identity of the many villages, family groups, bands, and tribes that inhabited Maine are complex and not easily understood in generalizations. Abenaki is the general term used to identify the American Indians in the central and western Maine regions, and the specific name Canibas (also Kennebec) identifies those who lived in the present-day Augusta area. There are no written records from them, but historical records and anthropological study inform us that people inhabited the Kennebec River area thousands of years before European contact and that Augusta was an important site.

Names of specific Abenaki women prior to European contact are not known, but it is easy to imagine them in bark canoes, possibly with passengers or cargo, quietly gliding their way along the river. Their spirits remain and memory of their presence on the river can be felt in a quiet, contemplative moment.

Site# 1.1 Sources:

	Bourque, Bruce J. "Prehistoric Indians of Maine." In Maine The Pine Tree State, eds. R. W. Judd, E. A. Churchill, and J. W. Eastman, 12-30. Orono, ME: University of Maine Press, 1995.
	Bourque, Bruce J., Kennebec Historical Society Lecture, 19 September 2001.
	McBride, Bunny. Women of the Dawn. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, c1999.
	McRae, Jill F. Kealey. "The Fannie Hardy Eckstorm Collection: An Eethnopoetic Analysis Penobscot Ways with Story, by Jill F. Kealey McRae, 1995." Dissertation, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1995.
	Nash, Charles Elventon. The History of Augusta: First Settlements and Early Days as A Town. Augusta, ME: Charles E. Nash & Son, 1904.
	Prins, Harald E. L. "The Wabanaki Frontier, 1524-1678." In Maine The Pine Tree State. Edited by R. W. Judd, E. A. Churchill, and J. W. Eastman, 97-119. Orono, ME: University of Maine Press, 1995.
	The Davistown Museum. On line resource available at http://www.davistownmuseum.org/bibMEprimary.htm. Accessed 6 March 2001.
	Willoughby, Charles Clark. Indian Antiquities of the Kennebec Valley. With a foreword and notes by Arthur E. Spiess. Augusta, ME: Maine Historic Preservation Commission, Maine State Museum, c1980.