MooNEY] TRIBAL SYNONYMY 183 



of Choctaw origin; for instance, the Canofracole, interprcti'il •wickt-il poople," tlie 

 tinal part heiiifr apparently the ('ho('taw won! nkla or ijijiild, "people", which appears 

 also in Tascafroula, Huvou <Touhi, and Penaicola. f^hetiinasha, Atakapa,an<l probably 

 Biloxi, are also Choutaw names, althongh the triljes themselves are of other origins. 

 As the Choctaw held much of the Gulf coast ami were the principal traders of that 

 region, it was natural tliat explorers landing among them should adopt their names 

 for tlie more remote tribes. 



The name seems to refer to the fact that the tril)e inriiiiied a cave country. Jn the 

 "Choctaw Leksikon" of Allen Wright, 1S80, page S7, we lind rliaUik, a noun, signify- 

 ing a hole, cavity, pit, chasm, etc., and as an adjective signifying hollow. In the man- 

 uscript Choctaw dictionary of Cyrus Byington, in the library of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, we find chilulc, 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 Hi ckUuk, a hollow tree; ahoha chiluk, an empty house; cliHuk 

 chukoii, to enter a hole. Other noun forms given are cimluk and nrliiliik in the singu- 

 lar and chilukoa in the plural, all signifying hole, pit, or cavity. Verbal forms are 

 chilukikhi, to make a hole, and chUukha, to open and form a fissure. 



In agreement with the genius of the Cherokee language the root form of the tril)al 

 name takes nominal or verbal prefixes according to its connection with the rest of 

 the sentence, and is declined, or rather conjugated, as follows: Singulak — first per- 

 son, Im-Tsa'Ugt, I (am) a Cherokee; second person, hi-Tna'ldg't., thou art a Chero- 

 kee; third person, a-Tm'la(Jl, he is a Cherokee. Dual — first person, dsti-Tm'li'ujl, 

 we two are Cherokee; second jierson, di-Tm'lagI, you two are Cherokee; third 

 person, iiiii'-Tsa'Irnjl, they two are Cherokee. Pu'ral — first person, dtii-Tm'lftg'i, 

 we (several) are Cherokee; se<'ond person, liitKi-Tm'ldgl, you (several) are Chero- 

 kee; third penson, iiid'-Tm'Irig'i, they (several) are Cherokee. It will lie noticed 

 that the third person dual and plural are alike. 



Oyata'ge'ronoil', etc. — ^The Iroquois (Mohawk) form is given by Hewitt as 0-yata'- 

 ge'ronon', of which the root is ycila, cave, o is the assertive prefix, ge is the locative at, 

 and ronon' 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 yatd occurs also in the Iroquois name for the opossum, which is a 

 burrowing animal. As is well known, the Allegheny region is ]ieculiarly a cave coim- 

 try, the caves having been used by the Indians for burial and shelter jiurjioses, 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-rouiiiV, and their Catawba name, MaiTteraiT, both seem to refer to coming 

 out of the ground, and may have been originally intended to convey the same idea 

 of cave ijeople. 



Rickahorkan — This name is used by the (Jerman explorer, bederer, in l(i70, as the 

 name of the people inhabiting the moimtains to the southwest of the Virginia .settle- 

 ments. On his map he puts them in the mountains on the southern head streams 

 of Roanoke river, in western North Carolina. He states that, acconling to his Indian 

 informants, the Rickahockan lived lieyond the mountains in a laud 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 languag<'. the idea of a succession of 

 mountain ridges. The name was ]irobably of I'owhatan origin, and is evidently 

 identical with Rechahecrian of the Virginia chronicles of about the same period, the 

 )• in the latter form l>eing perhaps a misiirint. It maybe connected with Kigbka- 

 hauk, iMdi<'ated on Smitli's nia|i of VirL'inia, in Hi07. as the name of a town within tlie 



