Dictionary of American Indians 



Absentee. — The official name of a di- 

 vision of the Shawnee (q. v.) who, 

 about 1845, l^ft the rest of the 

 tribe then in Kansas, and removed to 

 Indian Territory. In 1901 Big Jim's 

 band numbered 184, under a special 

 agent, in Oklahoma; under the Sauk 

 and Fox agency the main body num- 

 bered 503; there are also 100 Absen- 

 tees and Potawatomi in Pottawatomie 

 county. Total about 700. (j.M.) 



Ginetewi Sawandgi. — Gatschet, Shawnee MS. 

 (B. A. E.), 1S79. (So called sometimes by the 

 other Shawnees. Ginetewi is derived from the 

 name of Canadian river, on which they live.) 



Pepua-hapitski Sawanogi. — Ibid. (Sig.: "Away- 

 froni-here Shawnees" ; commonly so called by 

 the other Shawnees.) 



Accomac. — -The name of a tribe of the 

 Powhatan confederacy of Virginia 

 and also of their principal village. 

 According to J. H. Trumbull the word 

 means "the other-side place," or "on- 

 the-other-side-of-water place." In 

 the Massachttsett language, ogkonie 

 or akawine means "beyond"; and ac, 

 aki, or ahkt in various Algonquian 

 dialects means "land." In this sense 

 the name has been applied to various 

 localities. The Accoinac tribe lived 

 in Accomac and Northampton coun- 

 ties, east of Chesapeake bay, and ac- 

 cording to Jefferson their principal 

 village was about Cheriton (Cherry- 

 stone) , in Northampton county. In 

 1608 they had 80 warriors. As they 

 declined in numbers and importance 

 they lost their tribal identity, and the 

 name became applied to all the In- 

 dians east of Chesapeake bay. Up to 

 181 2 they held their lands in common, 

 under the name of Accomacs — -living 

 chiefly in upper Accomac county — 

 and Gingaskins (see Gangasco) , near 

 Eastville, Northampton county. They 

 were much mixed with negroes, and 

 at the Nat Turner insurrection, about 

 1833, were treated as such and driven 

 off. (J.M.) 



Accawmacke. — Smith (1629), Virginia, i, 133, re- 

 print 1 81 9. 

 Accomack. — Ibid., 120. 

 Accowmack. — Ibid., map. 

 Acomack. — Ibid., ii, 61. 

 Acomak. — Drake, Book of Indians, v, 1848. 



Achou^oulas,— Sig. probably "Pipe peo- 

 ple,' from the Choctaw ashunga, 

 "pipe" (Gatschet). One of the nine 

 villages constituting the Natchez or 

 Nachi confederacy in 1699. — Iberville 

 (1699) in Margry, Decouvertes, iv, 

 179, 1880. 



Achsinnink. — "At the rock." A village 

 of the Unalachtigo Delawares, about 

 1770, on Hocking river, Ohio. — Heck- 

 ewelder in Trans. Am. Philos. Soc, 

 IV, 390, 1834. 



Acoma. — From the native name Akome, 

 "People of the white rock," now 

 commonly pronounced A'-ko-ma. The 

 aboriginal name of their town is A'ko. 

 A pueblo of the western branch of the 

 Queres or Keresan stock, situated on 

 a rock mesa or pehol, 357 feet in 

 height, about 60 miles west of the 

 Rio Grande, in Valencia coimty. New 

 Mexico. Acoma is mentioned as early 

 as 1539 by Fray Marcos de Niza, un- 

 der the name Acus, a corruption of 

 Hakiikia, the Zuni name of the pueblo ; 

 bttt it was first visited the following 

 year by members of Coronado's army, 

 who recorded the name as Acuco. 

 The strength of the position of the 

 village (which has the distinction of 

 being the oldest inhabited settlement 

 in the United States) is remarked by 

 the early Spanish chroniclers, who 

 estimated its houses at 200 and its 

 warriors at the same number. An- 

 tonio de Espejo also visited Acoma in 

 1583, designating it by the name 

 under which it is now known, attribit- 

 ting to it the exaggerated population 

 of 6000, and mentioning its dizzy 

 trail cut in the rock and its cultivated 

 fields "two leagues away" — -probably 

 those still tilled at Acomita (Tichuna) 

 and Pueblito (Titsiap), their two 

 summer or farming villages 15 miles 

 distant. Juan de Ohate, the coloni- 

 zer of New Mexico, visited Acoma in 

 1598, when, during his governorship, 

 Fray Andres Corchado was assigned 

 a mission field which included that 

 pueblo, but no mission was actually 

 established there at so early a date. 



