6 io 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. 17, 1908. 
Place Names 
F EW States have such a wealth of strange 
and curious names as Louisiana, and 
these are not generally understood. 
The following paper, therefore, which was 
prepared several years ago by the Hon. 
William H. Seymour and read at a meeting 
of the Louisiana Historical Society, will ex¬ 
plain many things that have puzzled North¬ 
ern anglers and gunners who have sojourned 
at Louisiana resorts: 
The chief city of the State was named in 
honor of Philippe d’Orleans; the two lakes just 
back of New Orleans were called for the Comte 
de Maurepas and the Comte de Pont Chartrain, 
and two rivers were named for the Prince de 
Conde and M. de Colbert. 
Pearl River, a short distance off (whose 
ancient Indian name, Tallahatchie, also signi¬ 
fying “the river of pearls,” has been stolen by 
an Alabama stream), gets 'its title from the fact 
that the Indians who lived on its bank used a 
peculiar kind of shell which they obtained from 
the river in scraping their canoes. These shells 
contained pearls, upon which the savages placed 
no value, but turned over to the Prench. “They 
were carried to Paris,” writes one of the men, 
“but we never learned whether they were true 
pearls or not.” 
The beautiful Teche gets its name through a 
corruption of Thresch, Deutsch, a relic of the 
German settlement on its banks. 
The name of Attakapas, “cannibals,” a some¬ 
what vague term applied to all southern 
Louisiana, calls attention to the fact that the 
Indian occupants of this region were cannibals 
at one time, although the French could never 
find authentic proof of this. Recent discoveries 
of Indian remains and of half-burnt human 
bones, in the shell mounds of St. Mary and 
Terrebonne, have verified the charges made 
against the Attakapas Indians by their neigh¬ 
bors and prove to have been no mere fancy or 
scandal. 
The name of the river which divides Louisi¬ 
ana from Texas, and which stands godfather 
for several towns, cities, lakes and countries, 
Sabine River, or anciently the river of the 
Sabine—the Spaniards called it Rio Adais, after 
an Indian tribe living on its banks, a name sur¬ 
viving in the village of Adays, in Natchitoches 
parish—recalls a story, the precise date of which 
it is impossible to fix, and of which there are 
several versions, all very similar. This story, 
as told by M. de Bosso, somewhat of a 
romancer and Munchausen, is that the French, 
landing on the shores of the Lac de Lobos, be¬ 
came very friendly with the natives. A large 
party of the savages were taken aboard the 
French boats, but the Frenchmen, becoming in¬ 
toxicated, cast the male Indians ashore and 
made off with the best looking squaws, from 
which incident and its resemblance to the story 
in Roman history, entitled, “The Rape of the 
Sabines,” the lake and river received their new 
names. 
Just below the city of New Orleans is a bend 
in the river which has been known as English 
Turn (Le Detour des Anglais), since long before 
the French settlement of Louisiana. When 
Bienville made his first exploring expedition up 
the Mississippi, in 1699, he met an English 
in Louisiana 
vessel of sixteen guns in this bend, commanded 
by a Captain Barr. Barr informed him that he 
had been sent out by Daniel Coxe, of New 
Jersey, who had obtained immense grants of land 
in America from the king of England, to sound 
the Mississippi and survey these lands, after 
which he was to return and convoy a number of 
vessels containing settlers for this new colony. 
Bienville completely hoodwinked the English¬ 
man. convinced him that the river was not the 
Mississippi, that the French had a strong fort 
and several settlements above—it was fifteen 
years before the French had settled on the 
Mississippi—and persuaded Barr to return to 
England. In honor of this ruse, which deter¬ 
mined the fate of Louisiana and made it a 
French instead of an English colony, the bend 
became known as English Turn. About the 
same distance east from New Orleans, near the 
Rigolets, or entrance into Lake Pontchartrain, 
is English Lookout, which marks the second 
attempt of England to occupy Louisiana, being 
the point where the British expedition against 
New Orleans in 1814-15 first landed, and whence 
it made a reconnoissance of the city and its 
defense. 
Chef Menteur, or “Lying Chief,” a bayou 
only a short distance off, and which connects 
Lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne, gets its name 
from one of the Choctaw chiefs, who was such 
a confirmed and incurable liar that his tribe, 
who worship veracity as the greatest of virtues, 
banished him to the inhospitable region of 
swamps and mosquitoes through which this 
bayou runs. The name of the lake into which 
it pours, Lake Borgne, or “One-Eyed, ’ has 
never been explained. Ga) r arre, the historian 
of Louisiana, gives it up, after some discus¬ 
sion, and it remains an unsolved conundrum to 
this day, unless it alludes to some unknown and 
prehistoric Indian cyclops who once dwelt upon 
its shores. 
The name borne by the capital of Louisiana 
and by two of its parishes, Baton Rouge, or 
“Red Stick,” is also a relic of the Indian days, 
being simply a translation of the aboriginal 
“Istrouma.” The location of the town is on 
the old boundary line between the two hostile 
tribes of the Bayagoula and Houma Indians, 
which was marked, some say, by an immense 
red cedar, others by a large stick, or picket, 
painted red. Indian names, however, are far 
less frequent in southern than in northern 
Louisiana, particularly the northwestern corner 
of the State, which was retained by the Govern¬ 
ment as a reservation for the Caddo, Coushatta 
and other Indian tribes for many years. 
Very few persons would be aware that rapids 
ever existed in Red River, a short distance 
from Alexandria, but for the name of the parish 
in which that town is situated—Rapides. These 
rapids were of clay or rock, three-quarters of 
a mile distant from each other, and formed a 
serious hindrance to the early navigation of 
Red River. Scarcely a ripple marks their place 
to-day; they have been gone nearly a century. 
The memory of man fails to recall the days 
when buffaloes existed in Louisiana, but that 
they were once numerous there is proved by 
the Ouachita, or Big Buffalo River. Similarly, 
the name of Loutre, or “Otter,” as Passe a 
Loutre at the mouth of the Mississippi, and 
numerous Bayou Loutres, is still frequent, al¬ 
though the otter has disappeared, while Bayou 
Castor, “beaver,” recalls another amphibious 
animal which is becoming very rare. Prairie 
Mamon in St. Landry indicates probably the 
finding of the bones of the mammoth. Of the 
present flora or fauna of the State not a speci¬ 
men is missing. We have Bayou Chataigner, 
French, and the town of Natchitoches, Indian 
for “chincapin;” the town of Plaquemine. “per¬ 
simmons;” Bayou Cypre, “cypress;” Chenier, 
“oak grove,” with Bayous Walnut, Hickory, etc., 
in profusion. We have the Tchefuncta River, 
Indian, and Bayou Chevrette, French for “deer;” 
Bayou Louis, “squirrel;” Bayous L’Ours, “bear;” 
Tiger, “tiger;” Toro, “bull,” Tortu, “turtle,” 
and Cocodrie, “alligator.” Of birds we have 
Calcasieu parish, “eagle;” Prairie Faquetaiqua, 
“turkey:” Petite Anse Island, “gosling,” and 
hundreds of others. Not even the insects are 
forgotten, and one of the most important 
streams in West Baton Rouge and Iberville is 
named Maringouin, “mosquito,” after that great 
pest of Louisiana—and not undeservedly named, 
since the mosquitoes, with their buzz and sting, 
make life upon its banks almost unendurable. 
A still more disagreeable entomological speci¬ 
men stands sponsor for a village in St. Bernard 
parish, a short distance from New Orleans, and 
which was formerly something of a watering 
place before the Mexican Gulf Railroad fell to 
pieces—La Chinche, or “bedbug,” a name suf¬ 
ficient, one would think, to have frightened away 
any summer excursionists. And this is not the 
worst name to be found on a map of Louisiana. 
There are islands, bayous, and even towns, 
whose names are of the most offensive mean¬ 
ing, but fortunately the obscenity is concealed 
under some foreign language. 
In studying geography, however, the stranger 
must be careful or he will soon become confused 
between French, Indian and Spanish. Passing 
through many dominions, it is not to be 
wondered at that there should be a confusion of 
tongues, and that an Indian name should be¬ 
come Gallicized or Anglicized. A fair sample 
of this is shown in a title now become very 
common and applied to numerous swamps and 
bayous, as well as to a very unedible fish. The 
original word was Choupicach, Indian for 
muddy. The French converted this into 
Choupique, or Cabbage Point; but since the 
Americans came in Choupique in its turn has 
been still further reduced to Shoe-peg. 
Far out in the wild pine forests of Catahoula 
is a large settlement known as Funny Louis, 
named, one would suppose, after some 
humorous old backwoodsman. Nothing of the 
sort. It is pure Choctaw, slightly modified 
from Funna Louach (“burnt squirrel”). A short 
distance off is Bushley’s Bayou. It is not 
named after any deceased Mr. Bushley, and 
nobody by that name has ever been, in that 
vicinity. It is simply Birchile Bayou, a Choc¬ 
taw word for “cut-off,” it being a cut-off be¬ 
tween two other streams. Then, again, Cal¬ 
casieu sounds very French and looks still more 
so in the ancient spelling, Queluqesieurs, (“some 
men”), but, after all, it is simply the Indian 
Kalkousouik, or “eagle.” 
Knight, in his History of London, tells a story 
of one of the most famous inns of that city, 
(Continued on page 636.) 
