malachigann.

1793 J. Macdonnell Diary in C. M. Gates Five Fur Traders (1933) 116 The [Qu'appelle] River is stocked with..Sturgeons..Breams, suckers or carpes, Pike, Doré, Cat fish or Barbue, Mullets, Mâe Achigan called by the Men Mâle Achigan and Nacaishe.

1800 A. Henry Jrnl. 17 Aug. (1988) I. 18 We found here [sc. in southern Manitoba] a few Indians who had a great quantity of sturgeon and other kinds of small fishes such as Catfish, Piccanan, Male Achegan, Brim, Pois D'Oile [etc.].

c1804 P. Grant Sauteux Indians ii. 310 in L. R. Masson Les Bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nord-ouest (1890) The principal fishes are: sturgeon, cat-fish..tullibee, Malachigan, [etc.].

1836 J. Richardson Fauna Boreali-Americana III. 65 Sciæna (Corvina) Richardsonii. The Malasheganè inhabits Lake Huron... It is called ‘Sheep's-head’ by the Anglo-Canadians.

1896 N.Y. Sun 30 July Malashagany, a name of the sheepshead of Lake Huron, the ‘bass’ of the English of Canada, and the ‘gros bossu’ (from its rounded back) of the French of the same country. The name is, through French Canadian, ‘malachegane’, from Nipissing ‘manashigan’, ‘the ill-formed bass’.

1907 F. W. Hodge Handbk. Amer. Indians i. 793/1 Malashaganay. A name of the sheepshead or fresh-water drum (Haplodinotus grunniens). Through Canadian French malashigané or manashigan in the Chippewa–Nipissing dialects of the Algonquian stock, signifying ‘ugly ashigan’. The ashigan is the black bass of American English.

1933 C. M. Gates Five Fur Traders of North-west 116 (note) The malashegane is mentioned by Tache as having the peculiar power of producing a noise like a distant beating as a drum deep in the water.

1992 Canad. Geographic Mar. 23 Up to 60 of Quebec's 116 species of freshwater fish depend on the watershed; at least 25 species spawn there. There are even a few exclusive to the Richelieu River basin, like the copper redhorse, a shy member of the sucker family, and the freshwater drum, which the locals call malachigan.