III—NOTES TO THE HISTORICAL SKETCH
(1) Tribal synonymy (page 15): Very few Indian tribes are known to us under the names by which they call themselves. One reason for this is the fact that the whites have usually heard of a tribe from its neighbors, speaking other languages, before coming upon the tribe itself. Many of the popular tribal names were originally nicknames bestowed by neighboring tribes, frequently referring to some peculiar custom, and in a large number of cases would be strongly repudiated by the people designated by them. As a rule each tribe had a different name in every surrounding Indian language, besides those given by Spanish, French, Dutch, or English settlers.
Yûñ′wiyă′—This word is compounded from yûñwĭ (person) and yă (real or principal). The assumption of superiority is much in evidence in Indian tribal names; thus, the Iroquois, Delawares, and Pawnee call themselves, respectively, Oñwe-hoñwe, Leni-lenape′, and Tsariksi-tsa′riks, all of which may be rendered “men of men,” “men surpassing other men,” or “real men.”
Kĭtu′hwagĭ—This word, which can not be analyzed, is derived from Kĭtu′hwă, the name of an ancient Cherokee settlement formerly on Tuckasegee river, just above the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. It is noted in 1730 as one of the “seven mother towns” of the tribe. Its inhabitants were called Ani′-Kĭtu′hwagĭ (people of Kituhwa), and seem to have exercised a controlling influence over those of all the towns on the waters of Tuckasegee and the upper part of Little Tennessee, the whole body being frequently classed together as Ani′-Kĭtu′hwagĭ. The dialect of these towns held a middle place linguistically between those spoken to the east, on the heads of Savannah, and to the west, on Hiwassee, Cheowah, and the lower course of Little Tennessee. In various forms the word was adopted by the Delawares, Shawano, and other northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee, probably from the fact that the Kituhwa people guarded the Cherokee northern frontier. In the form Cuttawa it appears on the French map of Vaugondy in 1755. From a similarity of spelling, Schoolcraft incorrectly makes it a synonym for Catawba, while Brinton incorrectly asserts that it is an Algonquian term, fancifully rendered, “inhabitants of the great wilderness.” Among the western Cherokee it is now the name of a powerful secret society, which had its origin shortly before the War of the Rebellion.
Cherokee—This name occurs in fully fifty different spellings. In the standard recognized form, which dates back at least to 1708, it has given name to counties in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, within the ancient territory of the tribe, and to as many as twenty other geographic locations within the United States. In the Eastern or Lower dialect, with which the English settlers first became familiar, the form is Tsa′răgĭ′, whence we get Cherokee. In the other dialects the form is Tsa′lăgĭ′. It is evidently foreign to the tribe, as is frequently the case in tribal names, and in all probability is of Choctaw origin, having come up from the south through the medium of the Mobilian trade jargon. It will be noted that De Soto, whose chroniclers first use the word, in the form Chalaque, obtained his interpreters from the Gulf coast of Florida. Fontanedo, writing about the year 1575, mentions other inland tribes known to the natives of Florida under names which seem to be of Choctaw origin; for instance, the Canogacole, interpreted “wicked people,” the final part being apparently the Choctaw word okla or ogula, “people”, which appears also in Pascagoula, Bayou Goula, and Pensacola. Shetimasha, Atakapa, and probably Biloxi, are also Choctaw names, although the tribes themselves are of other origins. As the Choctaw held much of the Gulf coast and were the principal traders of that region, it was natural that explorers landing among them should adopt their names for the more remote tribes.
The name seems to refer to the fact that the tribe occupied a cave country. In the “Choctaw Leksikon” of Allen Wright, 1880, page 87, we find choluk, a noun, signifying a hole, cavity, pit, chasm, etc., and as an adjective signifying hollow. In the manuscript Choctaw dictionary of Cyrus Byington, in the library of the Bureau of American Ethnology, we find chiluk, noun, a hole, cavity, hollow, pit, etc., with a statement that in its usual application it means a cavity or hollow, and not a hole through anything. As an adjective, the same form is given as signifying hollow, having a hole, as iti chiluk, a hollow tree; aboha chiluk, an empty house; chiluk chukoa, to enter a hole. Other noun forms given are chuluk and achiluk in the singular and chilukoa in the plural, all signifying hole, pit, or cavity. Verbal forms are chilukikbi, to make a hole, and chilukba, to open and form a fissure.
In agreement with the genius of the Cherokee language the root form of the tribal name takes nominal or verbal prefixes according to its connection with the rest of the sentence, and is declined, or rather conjugated, as follows: Singular—first person, tsi-Tsa′lăgĭ, I (am) a Cherokee; second person, hi-Tsa′lăgĭ, thou art a Cherokee; third person, a-Tsa′lăgĭ, he is a Cherokee. Dual—first person, âsti-Tsa′lăgĭ, we two are Cherokee; second person, sti-Tsa′lăgĭ, you two are Cherokee; third person, ani′-Tsa′lăgĭ, they two are Cherokee. Plural—first person, atsi-Tsa′lăgĭ, we (several) are Cherokee; second person, hitsi-Tsa′lăgĭ, you (several) are Cherokee; third person, ani′-Tsa′lăgĭ, they (several) are Cherokee. It will be noticed that the third person dual and plural are alike.
Oyataʼgeʻronoñʼ, etc.—The Iroquois (Mohawk) form is given by Hewitt as O-yataʼ-geʻronoñʼ, of which the root is yataʼ, cave, o is the assertive prefix, ge is the locative at, and ronoñʼ is the tribal suffix, equivalent to (English) -ites or people. The word, which has several dialectic forms, signifies “inhabitants of the cave country,” or “cave-country people,” rather than “people who dwell in caves,” as rendered by Schoolcraft. The same radix yataʼ occurs also in the Iroquois name for the opossum, which is a burrowing animal. As is well known, the Allegheny region is peculiarly a cave country, the caves having been used by the Indians for burial and shelter purposes, as is proved by numerous remains found in them. It is probable that the Iroquois simply translated the name (Chalaque) current in the South, as we find is the case in the West, where the principal plains tribes are known under translations of the same names in all the different languages. The Wyandot name for the Cherokee, Wataiyo-ronoñʼ, and their Catawba name, Mañterañ′, both seem to refer to coming out of the ground, and may have been originally intended to convey the same idea of cave people.
Rickahockan—This name is used by the German explorer, Lederer, in 1670, as the name of the people inhabiting the mountains to the southwest of the Virginia settlements. On his map he puts them in the mountains on the southern head streams of Roanoke river, in western North Carolina. He states that, according to his Indian informants, the Rickahockan lived beyond the mountains in a land of great waves, which he interpreted to mean the sea shore (!), but it is more likely that the Indians were trying to convey, by means of the sign language, the idea of a succession of mountain ridges. The name was probably of Powhatan origin, and is evidently identical with Rechahecrian of the Virginia chronicles of about the same period, the r in the latter form being perhaps a misprint. It may be connected with Righkahauk, indicated on Smith’s map of Virginia, in 1607, as the name of a town within the Powhatan territory, and still preserved in Rockahock, the name of an estate on lower Pamunkey river. We have too little material of the Powhatan language to hazard an interpretation, but it may possibly contain the root of the word for sand, which appears as lekawa, nikawa, negaw, rigawa, rekwa, etc., in various eastern Algonquian dialects, whence Rockaway (sand), and Recgawawank (sandy place). The Powhatan form, as given by Strachey, is racawh (sand). He gives also rocoyhook (otter), reihcahahcoik, hidden under a cloud, overcast, rickahone or reihcoan (a comb), and rickewh (to divide in halves).
Talligewi—As Brinton well says: “No name in the Lenape′ legends has given rise to more extensive discussion than this.” On Colden’s map in his “History of the Five Nations,” 1727, we find the “Alleghens” indicated upon Allegheny river. Heckewelder, who recorded the Delaware tradition in 1819, says: “Those people, as I was told, called themselves Talligeu or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, a gentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is of the opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligewi; and it would seem that he is right from the traces of their name which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former Alligewi Sipu (the river of the Alligewi)”—Indian Nations, p. 48, ed. 1876. Loskiel, writing on the authority of Zeisberger, says that the Delawares knew the whole country drained by the Ohio under the name of Alligewinengk, meaning “the land in which they arrived from distant places,” basing his interpretation upon an etymology compounded from talli or alli, there, icku, to that place, and ewak, they go, with a locative final. Ettwein, another Moravian writer, says the Delawares called “the western country” Alligewenork, meaning a warpath, and called the river Alligewi Sipo. This definition would make the word come from palliton or alliton, to fight, to make war, ewak, they go, and a locative, i. e., “they go there to fight.” Trumbull, an authority on Algonquian languages, derives the river name from wulik, good, best, hanne, rapid stream, and sipu, river, of which rendering its Iroquois name, Ohio, is nearly an equivalent. Rafinesque renders Talligewi as “there found,” from talli, there, and some other root, not given (Brinton, Walam Olum, pp. 229–230, 1885).