OLD TOWNS, FLOWERED ROCKS, AND PLACE OF THE HANGING PUMPKINS

Apalachicola River; FWC photo.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how we perceive our place on the land.  We see the land through the lens of our own time and age and experience.  We know cognitively that others lived on the land before us, but cognition isn’t the same as experience. What did those “others” before us think about?  What were their dreams, hopes, aspirations?

That train of thought led me into thinking about what our ancestors—biologically, culturally, historically or some combination of the three—left behind for us to find.  Did they know that they were leaving breadcrumbs that would endure down the ages? 

One trail of breadcrumbs I’ve always enjoyed following is how some Florida locations got their names.  Indigenous groups of people lived in Florida for more than 12,000 years before the first white man arrived, and their influence on the land still is evident in many of Florida’s place names.  Those place names are a window into the past, a relic of the original civilizations that flourished here.

The indigenous people who populated what later become Florida were a polyglot of tribes.  Some, the Timucua, Apalachee, Chatot, Pensacola, and Calusa, were native to the region.  Few of their words have come down to us through place names or any other source, and those that have we can't translate.  Most Indian place names in the state are from the Creek or Muskogee, Choctaw, and Hitchiti languages, which were spoken by tribes that came into the area from other parts of the Southeast.  These groups included the Yamassee, Yuchi, Hitchiti, Oconee, Tamathli, Chiaha, and Creeks.

Some names have endured in almost literal form; others have undergone various degrees of alteration.  Many are unrecog­niz­able.  Scholars can make guesses as to what these names orig­inally were, but the meaning of quite a few is lost to us. 

Indian names are usually very descriptive of a place, sometimes poetically so.  If a name isn't descriptive, linguists say, the site probab­ly was named for another place, much like Euro­peans brought English names to the New World.

Tallahassee is one name for which the meaning is clear.  The Creeks called the area where Florida's capital now sits "Tal­lahassa Talofa."  The words translate from the Creek tongue as Talwa, meaning "town", Ahassee, "old," and Talofa, which also meant "town."  Since this literally means "Old Town Town," the Creeks probably placed their village on the site of an older settlement.

Another name that's easy to translate is Okefenokee, a large swamp in north Florida and south Georgia.  The first part of the name is from either the Hitchiti Oki or Creek Oke, which both mean "water."  The second part, Fenoke, is a Creek word that means "trembling" or "shaky." 

The origin of Suwannee River is a bit harder to account for.  The Cherokees had a village in Georgia named "Suwani," which they said was a Creek word meaning "echo."  Since good echoes are common on the Suwannee, that explanation of the name seems as good as any.

Apalachicola, a river, a town, and a bay, is also a bit hard to trace.  It may be from the Choctaw word Apelachi, which means "ally," or Apelichi, meaning "ruling place," plus Okla, which means "people."  Another possible source is the Hitchiti words Apalah­chi, "on the other side," and Okli, "peo­ple."

The related name Apalachee, also a bay, may be from the name of the Apalachee tribe.  Or, it may be from the Choctaw word Apelachi.

Leon County's Lake Iamonia is another name whose origin is hard to find.  At one time, an old Seminole town named Hiamonee was located on the east bank of the Ochlockonee River near the Georgia line.  What the name means is not clear, but there may have been some connection to the Yamassee tribe, whose name was from the Creek word Yamasi, which meant "mild" or "peaceable."

The origin of Lake Miccosukee, east of Tallahassee, is less obscure than some other names.  It's from Hitchiti, and may be from the words miki, "chief", and suki, "hogs", which together mean "chiefs of the hog clan."  The other possibility is mika­suki, also a Hitchiti word, which meant "hog eaters."

The Ochlockonee River, which now forms Lake Talquin, was at one time the western boundary of the area where the Apalachee tribe lived.  The name may be from the Hitchiti words Oki and Lagana, which means "yellow."  A Creek dictionary, however, gives the word Nenne for "road" or "path", which together with the Creek word Oke, may term the river a "water road."

One of the tributaries of the Ochlockonee is Oklawaha Creek, in south Gadsden County.  This name, too, is from the Creek language.  It originally was Al-lowahe, which means "muddy" or "boggy."

Another river name of Creek descent is Sopchoppy.  It's from the words sokhe, or "twisted" and chapke, "long."  Literally, then, "long twisted stream." 

One name for which the meaning will never be known is Wakulla.  Despite popular belief, no evidence exists to support the idea that it means "mystery."  It's probably from a Timucuan word, Guacara, which was the name of a town.  The Creek language lacks a true "r," and substitutes an "l" or "hl" sound.  So, Wakulla as we say it now is a Creek pronun­cia­tion of the Timu­cuan word whose meaning is lost in time.

Linguists think the word Wetumpka, which is a small settle­ment south of Quincy, is probably an import.  It's from the Creek word Wetamke or Wetumke, which means "noisy water."  Since Wetumpka is not located at such a site, it probably came from a waterfall of the same name on the Coosa River in Alabama.

Down in Liberty County is a small town called Telogia.  This name, also, is from the Creek language.  It was originally two words, Tala, or "palm," and uchi, or "little," which was a refer­ence to palmetto.

Aucilla, the river that forms the boundary between Jefferson and Madison Counties, is another legacy of the Timucua whose meaning is unknown.  It's a very old name, and has been spelled Assilly, Oscillee, Scilly, and Asile.  In the early 1800s, a Seminole village known as Oscillee was on the east bank of the river.

Chattahoochee, both a town in Gadsden County and a tributary of the Apalachicola River, has the poetic translation "flowered stone."  It's from two Creek words, chato or "rock," and huchi, "marked."

The Chipola River is another branch of the Apalachicola River.  It's from a Choctaw word, Champuli, which means "sweet."

One more river and bay, the Choctawhatchee, is also from the Choctaw tongue.  It means simply "river of the Choctaws."

Other derivations are more obscure.  Who would recognize the name that translates to "place of the hanging pumpkins?"  Yet call it by its Seminole name, Chassahowitzka, and we know it as that swampy area in Hernando County.

Although translators agree that Steinhatchee is derived from the Creek language, they don't agree about its meaning.  They do agree that hatchee means river or stream.  The first part of the

word may come from isti, man and in, his, which would translate as "Man River."  Or it may be from isti and nene, which means trail; in this case, it would translate as "Trail River."

These names are only a few of the words with which the Native American dialects have graced the English language.  Many of the place names we take for granted in Florida—Miami, Tampa (its origin is Creek, not Spanish), Pensacola—are a part of that lyric linguistic heritage.

Chipola River Shoal; FWC photo.