Ill— NOTES TO THE HISTORICAL SKETCH 



(1) Tribal synonymy (page 15): Very few Indian tribes are known to us under 

 the names by which tliey 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 origi- 

 nally nicknames bestowed by neighboring tribes, frequently referring to some peculiar 

 custom, and in a large number of cases would be strongly reiiudiated 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. 



YtiWiviya' — This word is compounded from yunirt (person) and j/tt (real or prin- 

 cipal). The assumption of superiority is much in evidence in Indian tribal names; 

 thus, the Iroquois, Delawares, and Pawnee call themselves, respectively, Oiiwe- 

 honwe, Leni-lenape', and Tsariksi-tsa'riks, all of which may be rendered "men of 

 men," "men surpassing other men," or "real men." 



Kitu'hvagl — This word, which can not be analyzed, is derived from KItu'hwii, the 

 name of an ancient Cherokee settlement formerly on Tuckasegee river, just aljove 

 the present Brysoii 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'- 

 Kltu'hwagl (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'-KItu'hwagl. 

 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, Cheowaih, and 

 the lower course of Little Tennessee. In various forms the word was adopted liy 

 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 Cnttawa 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, fanci- 

 fully 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 recog- 

 nized 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 ITnited States. 

 In the Eastern or Lower dialect, with which the English settlers first became famil- 

 iar, the form is Tsa'rSgl', whence we get Cherokee. In the other dialects the form 

 is Tsa'litgjf'. 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 triljes known to the natives of Florida under names which seem to be 

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