Note 68 — Chapter III

Heckewelder, in his unpublished MSS, asserts that both these names mean "Opossum". It is true that the name of this animal in Lenape is woapink, in the New Jersey dialect opiing, and in the Nanticoke of Smith oposon, but all these are derived from the root wab, which originally meant "white," and was applied to the East as the place of the dawn and the light. The reference is to the light gray, or whitish, color of the animal's hair. Compare the Cree, wapiskowes, cendré, il a le poil blafard Lacombe, Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris s v