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Names, Geographical -- Great Smoky Mountains (N.C. and Tenn.)
WCU - Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

Editorials: News & Courier

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Editorials: News & Courier

NCWRA_019_12_06_06
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Editorials: News & Courier

NCWRA_019_12_06_07
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Editorials: News & Courier

NCWRA_019_12_06_08
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  • BLUE RIDGE MOUFTAffl LORE. IltK CHEUOH-EM AND XV8CAJCOHA XAMJUS, AX1) WHAT XHXX MICAS. "Chuckey Joe," the Scholarly Mountaineer, on the War Path forthe Printer. Corrects Some Typographical Errors, and Tells of the Cherokee Nomenclature—Indians who Counted Time by Nights, not by Days, and who Gave Names to Streams mid Rivulets, but Rarely to the Mountains Themselves— A Language of Nasal Gutturals and Very Few Labials. To the Editor of The New- and Courier: 'Aa I find my last communication, in once to our mountain nomenclature In both your daily an.! weekly, I think 1 can reasonably .assume that you .share my interest in the subject, and, therefore, venture to correct certain typographical errors, which should be attributed rather to "haste and a bad pen," (aa the pig said when he "saved Ms bacon,") than to the carelessness of the printer, perhaps, The name of the "Great Smokys" (both in extent and average altitude surpassing the Black Mountains of Yancey County) X gave as .the "Chessetoahs," meaning. not as one might well imagine, the "Bear" or "Panther" Mountains, but simply "Place of Rabbits," or. as we might say. "Rabbit Range." Luckily the Cherokee word need not always be translated, but some folk, you know, are never r until they get "behind_ the returning boards." Chessetoah applies only to the Master Mountain, between French Broad (Zehleeka) and Little Tennessee (Tenni- seeta;) south of last named river, though distinctly less elevated, the range was known as the "Unakas" or White Mountains; the continuation of the "State Line Ridge" between French Broad and Roan Mountain, especially to the south of Chuckey or Nolachuckey River, should be the "Chuckeynola" Mountains. Further north is the rainy-rainy "Roan;" then Stone Mountain, (Noyahneeta,) of which the highest crest is the Big (Klonteska or Pheasant) of Banner's Elk, and Just within the Virginia most the last of our Titans, rises White Top or Kamniayrock, meeting in Tusca- rora the "Panther-pelt." Mount Guyot (there is a second Mount Guyot in the Blacks and'a third In tin- Rockies) is Sornook, name of 11 chief of tin- Cherokeea on Luftei SoCO, whose son (of same name) fell fighting gallantly ■ he Southern a dap, Kentucky. Our Hew ■ «'ns certainly not "Oclawaha," (that Is not a ("h,Token WOTd.) 1"' was Oss- ha-ha, meaning unknown bo me, bul hardly "I aughing Water," us it never laughs and si tdi.m Laps, being one of the ed Into a sense of its own Impoi i doubt, by lt» proximity to Flat Rock and the "four Hundred." Such social distinction is not compatible with the frivol "1 'a; endia." So much for my corrections, to which, however, T may add a i think it likely to li,unlit your ,■ who, just at I tiwni' : up here sometime nitt Erom ' he "mosquito " '" " : ,in,' can find between supper a I trust you wall foi "attack Of long which i hope may tempi mountain lore and [ndlan lingo to ! half of our—noi B not i Jn, un less simply to correel ml It may, however, Intereal yon to know that the unrad mon-pure Cherokee, wtth Its Inarticulate aspirate nearly total lack of labials (you can talfc ail day in Big ingln ami never brim lips together—try the effect.) is real .,1' tli- mus't i to English (mis, only when m l'-ss corrup eral dia- . howeyei ■ tike tin, . versationaUy a< this affords us very reasonable* grounds for paring down a dozen or syllables Into three or four of ours. I append a few Indian names, Incli some already given, together with the meaning of such as are known to me. Even the Cherokee . have, in many cases, forgotten the. nam origin of local names, which (be it noted) we ways applied to water courses, even to the smaller streams, but rarely lo the mountains themselves; hence, our names of the crests often arbitrary, or derived from the rivers and rivulets which flow from them. The Cherokee counted time by nights, not by days, as we do, and hi scribed, not by "ridges," but by "l by the "creeks" he had forded, not by the "crests" he had climbed. In an earlier article written for our local paper, the Hustler, I gave the meaning of Sunnalee (Craggys of Buncombe,) if I remember rightly, again too much "haste," or, perhaps, a "bad pen," m iy I serve as plea, as "Evening," but really | t means Morning or Light, whilst Seenoyah Che Black Mountains) means Darkness, or Night. On. ' :st, Mount Mitchell, high est i of the Rockies, r 6,707 feet above "sea and surf," or, say, above "Moultrie and malaria." Saloia, our Henderson County Sugar Loaf, is the Squirrel; whilst Bear Wallow was Yonah, the ay, near the. limpid lakes of Sapphire (the natives always call it Sap-Fire,) means Red Bird. Satulah, near Highlands, (if we ignore the more probable derivation from "the Btool," a table-like mass of rock near its summit,) we might derive from "sah-too- lee," which means "Do you wish?" The "Wish Cap " would be a picturesque name for even some summit in Fable Land. The Cherokee word for wind, too, has a some- Li,' what similar sound, and at even 3,817 (the altim phlands,) there should never be a lack of that article. Swannanoa, one of the most musical names in all th Is, was doubtless originally "Seequa-nanoweh," which I am constrained to "Pig Path" River. The NantaJ >;in tains, or rather river, in Cherokee, "Nahnto-ee- yah-heh-:. gun in the Middle,) the Indian runn.a the settlements on Valley River Konnaheet or Long,) and those on Luf- tee and Soco v. _ it usually about mid ins a chimney.' meaning of Istinday.. Sides.) ap plied a hundred or more years ago to one of the upper tributaries of the Savannah, Is now lost; I should imagine it was really Tuscarora, not Cherokee. Junahiska (Plot Balsams,) and Judykulla, (Richland Balsams,) both high ranges, (6, feet) near Waynesville, as well as the Kye< ma, tin Transylvania, to the north and northwest of Brevard, whose highest crests, also about 6,500 feet. > are named from Cherokee d Junahiska was a great warrior in hi and took part in the Jacksontan w and took part in the Jacksontan W*H* Gn«*» \ Qv\Vk Wf.Chucke Hendersonville, r# C, August 22. at in n; fo tb w lit si pr ti. s; bt if ta II,
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Great Smoky Mountains - A Park for America

This digital collection was created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934. The most vi...

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