Stadacona

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A historic Iroquoian village that once stood where the Canadian city of Quebec now lies on the St. Lawrence River
2. The name of an Indigenous settlement recorded by French explorers near the site of today's Quebec City in Canada
3. An old Iroquoian community on the St. Lawrence River whose location is now occupied by the city of Quebec

Etymology: In 1535, when Jacques Cartier sailed up the St. Lawrence River on his second voyage, he found an Iroquoian-speaking village on the cliffs where Quebec City now stands. He recorded its name as Stadacona, and the name is the only surviving record of the people who lived there. Cartier's account is the sole source for the village's name, and no reliable etymology has been established. Scholars have proposed meanings based on reconstructed Iroquoian roots, but none is secure enough to state as fact. The village was apparently abandoned by the time Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608. The reasons are debated, and the Iroquoian population of the St. Lawrence valley had largely vanished from the record by then. The name survived in European maps and writing for a while, and it was later revived as a place name in Quebec, where it is now mainly attached to a neighborhood and to local institutions.