MOREAU RIVER: Mistai'yohe, 'Owl river' (mis'tai, 'owl,' + ohe'). Tributary of the Missouri, having its source northeast of the Black hills. EAGLE CHIEF CREEK: Māiyūn'ikamahk, 'Medicine Wood (river)' (maiyun', 'mysterious,' + kā māhk, 'wood'). A tributary of the Cimarron from the north. NORTH FORK OF RED RIVER (of Texas): Mõhkimis'seevo, Big Sand' (mõhk, 'big,' + hissi'yovo, 'sand'). KNIFE RIVER: Hövăťovoni'ohe, 'Sword river' (hövăťõvăn, 'sword,' +ohe). A tributary of the Missouri near Ft Berthold, North Dakota. TULE CREEK: Mõõhmistǎ'shë, 'Where rushes stand thick' (mõõhmis' tăs, 'rush,' + she). A tributary of Red river. WALNUT CREEK: Mōtōshe', 'Where ash trees grow thick' (mōtō', ash,' + she). A tributary of the Arkansas. APISHAPA: Ō'evütsi'yōhe, 'Quarreling river' (evi'hyōět, 'she scolds,' +ohe'). A tributary of the Arkansas between the Huerfano and the Purgatory in Colorado. Many years ago a village of Indians encamped there began to quarrel among themselves. Both men and women took part in the dispute. They did not fight; merely talked at each other scolded. CROW CREEK: Óhētăni'ohe, 'Crow (Indian) river' (Ō'hētăn, 'Crow man,' + ohe'). Near Cheyenne, Wyo. The Northern Cheyenne call this Oh' koki'ohe, Crow (bird) river.' ARIKARA FORK OF REPUBLICAN RIVER: Ónonio'he, Ree river' (O'nōni, Arikara,' + ohe'). On an island (Beecher's island) in this stream the fight took place in 1868 between Maj. G. A. Forsythe's command of 50 scouts and the Cheyenne, in which chief Roman Nose was killed. SAND CREEK: Pun'oiohe, Dry creek' (pūn'õì, 'dry,' + ohè'). A tributary of the Arkansas east of Fort Lyon, Colo. Here occurred the Chivington massacre. SALINE FORK OF SMOKY HILL RIVER: Shistotóiyohe, 'Cedar river' (shistotó, 'cedar tree,' + ohë'). PURGATORY RIVER: Hotoănă'ohe, 'Difficult river' (hōtōăná, 'difficult,' + ohe'). So named from its perpendicular banks and the cañons through which it runs. MULBERRY CREEK: Tsi'onitaivo, 'Differently timbered' (river) Tributary of the Named from the (tsi'ōnitãiwo, where different sorts of trees grow'). Arkansas from the south near Fort Dodge, Kansas. variety of trees which formerly grew on its banks. FRENCHMAN'S FORK OF REPUBLICAN RIVER: Wi'hioiyohe, 'White man's river' (wih'io, 'white man,' + ohe'). The upper Rio Grande in New Mexico bears the same name. NORTH FORK OF REPUBLICAN RIVER: Wi'hiuniyóhe, Chief river' PORCUPINE CREEK: Hets'kovitsiyohe, Porcupine river' (hetskovits, 'porcupine,' + ohe'). A northern tributary of the Yellowstone. SUN RIVER: Ishii'yohe, 'Sun river' (ishě, 'sun,' + ohe'). A western tributary of the Missouri. STINKING WATER, OR WIND RIVER: Höhkōméomap, Ill-smelling water' (hōhkomé, 'bad smelling,' + măpi, 'water'). GREEN RIVER: Tassoiyohe, 'Scalp river' (må tåss', ‘scalp,' + ohè'). Many years ago the Cheyenne had a fight on this river, in which many. were killed, and when they saw the dead lying there scalped, they called it River of Scalps. It has also been given me as 'Soul river' (tässõõm', 'shadow,' + ohe'), but the first is the true derivation. BITTER CREEK: Wiuhk'imap. (See Sweetwater River of the South, above.) Tributary of the North Platte from the north. 346 Broadway, NEW YORK CITY THE POWHATAN NAME FOR VIRGINIA BY WILLIAM WALLACE TOOKER In the Powhatan name for Virginia occurs one of the few instances in which is found an Indian name applied to such an extensive territory. Virginia, according to the early charters, and as delineated by the cartographers of the seventeenth century, was a variable quantity as to its bounds in the north and south, which were also indefinable in the west, and were so considered by the colonists and the king. We cannot suppose, nor do we believe, therefore, that the subject of this essay applied to the whole of this vast domain, but rather, being a Powhatan appellative, it was applicable mainly to the country dominated by Powhatan, or at most to the lands drained by the tidewater streams flowing into Chesapeake bay on the west, as laid down on Capt. John Smith's map,' which are now included in the present commonwealth of Virginia. This view of the case is confirmed by Strachey (Historie, p. 29), who refers to the various tribes in the following words: "Which are in chief commaunded by their great Kinge Powhatan, and are comprehended under the denomination of Tsenacommacoh, of which we maye more by experience speak, yt being the place wherein our abode and habitation hath now (well neare) 11 yeares consisted." A note to this says: "In the Mss., the word 'six' was originally written, but has been crossed out and two strokes, thus, ' II ' inserted in darker coloured ink." As Strachey arrived in Virginia in 1610 and remained three years, he must have written the above paragraph in 1613, when the colony had been established six years, and revised it in 1618, although his manuscript was not edited and published until 1849. In his "Dictionarie" he gives as Virginia, Tsenahcommacah. Therefore in these two notations we have the earliest form of the Powhatan name 1 These lands Smith marks on his map “Powhatan" in large Roman letters which extend from south of James river northwardly to the upper Potomac. for Virginia, which without question can be assigned to a period not later than the year 1613. On the well-known engraving of Pocahontas (plate vi),1 by Simon De Passe, which was copied by an unknown artist from a painting made in 1616, when she was 21 years of age, and still preserved at Booton Hall, near Aylsham, Norfolk, England, appears the legend: "Matoaks als Rebecka daughter to the mighty Prince Powhatan Emperour of Attanoughkomouck als virginia converted and baptized in the Christian faith, and wife to the word Joh Rolff." The picture is no doubt what it professes to be, namely, an authentic portrait, from life, of Pocahontas, made during the reign of James I. A description of the original painting, by Mrs Herbert Jones, appears in Arber's reprint of Smith's works. A copy is contained in Drake's Book of the Indians, 8th edition, 1841, which furnished the accompanying reproduction. As Pocahontas posed for the portrait while in England, the name Attanoughkomouck must have been thus pronounced to the painter by Pocahontas herself, for the inscription is undoubtedly contempo As to the significance and etymology of this name, Heckewelder (Names, etc., 1833) says: "It was corrupted from Pockohantes, signifying, a streamlet or river between two hills, compounded of pochko, a rock, or rocky hill, and hanne, a stream, the latter word made a diminutive by the suffix tes." This is incorrect, for Strachey earlier wrote: "So the great King Powhatan called a young daughter of his, whome he loved well, Pochahuntas, which may signify little wanton; howbeyt she was rightly called Amonate at more ripe yeares." (Historie, p. 111.) Strachey is correct in this statement, for the name, as revealed by its variations in spelling, is from the cognate of the Natick poachau he or she plays' or 'makes merry'; -ontas, -untas (= Natick, -ántam, diminutive -ántas), is the formative of verbs expressing mental state and activity, or disposition of the mind, with the diminutive termination. Póacha-untas thus signifies 'the little merry-minded,' 'the little frolic,' whence, also, the little wanton.' "All wanton as a child, skipping and vain.” — Love's Labor Lost. Of which trait Strachey writes: “Pochahuntas, a well featured, but wanton young girle, Powhatan's daughter somety mes resorting to our fort [Jamestown], of the age then of eleven or twelve yeares, get the boyes forth with her unto the markett place, and make them wheele, falling on their hands, turning up their heeles upwards, whome she would followe and wheele so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over.' (Historie, p. 65.) "Amonate at more ripe years," amonateu 'she gives warning,' probably had reference to the warning which she gave Smith in 1609, for the Indians often changed their names at the time of some remarkable happening, viz.: "That when her father, intended to haue surprized him, shee by stealth in the darke night came through the wild woods and told him of it." (Smith, pp. 165, 455, 532.) Matoaks, on the portrait, = Natick matohqsa cloud.' |