382 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1954 



Mississippi. — ^The earliest occurrence of the name Mississippi is on 

 the La Salle map of 1695, La Salle having been the first to navigate 

 down the Mississippi River, in 1C82. The name is patently from some 

 language or dialect of the Algonquian stock, probably Chippewa, the 

 meaning being "large river." The designation is descriptive, but was 

 probably used in Pre-Columbian times, for one way of saying "large 

 river" in Chippewa is Mici-zibi (mici-, "large"; zibi, "river"), and the 

 French orthography cited above is intended for this form, for even 

 Ottawa, another language of the Algonquian stock, has meci- instead 

 of mici-, and the French form probably comes from a tongue which has 

 mici-. The name of the Mississippi River has been erroneously stated 

 to mean "large water," and "father of waters." 



In 1798, previous to the Louisiana Purchase, Mississippi Territory 

 was created by Congress out of what was then part of Florida, the 

 Mississippi River name being bestowed on the Territory. In 1817, 

 with the division of Mississippi Territory, the eastern half became 

 xilabama Territory, and Mississippi became a State. 



Missouri. — The Marquette map, 1673, has on it the earliest occur- 

 rence of the word Missouri in the form 8emess8rit. (Marquette uses 

 8 instead of French ou.) The modern form lacks both the beginning 

 and end. Although the French orthography has double s, showing 

 that the sound is to be pronounced sharp, the current English pro- 

 nunciation is to sound the ss as z. The name signifies "canoe haver." 

 The canoes referred to wxre dugouts. 



The Missouri were a small tribe perhaps belonging to the Algon- 

 quian stock and living on the Missouri River, their neighbors to the 

 west being the Little Osage and to the east the Illinois. According to 

 information supplied by Swanton, the Missouri had a tradition that 

 their ancestors came from the Illinois River. Also, according to 

 Swanton, the survivors of the Missouri tribe became mixed with Oto- 

 speaking Indians, and the Missouri Indians still living speak only 

 Oto. 



The Missouri River got its name from the Missouri tribe, and 

 when Missouri Territory was created in 1817 out of a portion of 

 the Louisiana Purchase, the name of the Missouri River was applied 

 to the Territory. The State of Missouri was created in 1821. The 

 name Missouri is sometimes erroneously said to mean "muddy water" 

 or "big muddy." 



Montana. — Montana is the onlj^^ State that has a classical Latin 

 name. Several others have neo-Latin names, but the word "montana" 

 is standard Latin. It is the feminine of the adjective Tiiontaanus^ 

 "mountainous," "having mountains," and is properly used only as a 

 country-name noun. There is no indication in comiection with the 

 application of the name that it is Latin neuter plural, which would 



