 They came together as a post-contact community after their original tribes were decimated by colonization, disease, and warfare.The word "Abenaki" and its syncope, "Abnaki," are both derived from "Wabanaki", or "Wôbanakiak," meaning "People of the Dawn Land" in the Abenaki language.While the two terms are often confused, the Abenaki are one of several tribes in the Wabanaki Confederacy.