Maskóki, Maskógi, isti Maskóki, designates a single person of the
Creek tribe, and forms, as a collective plural, Maskokálgi, the Creek
community, the Creek people, the Creek Indians. English authors write
this name Muscogee, Muskhogee, and its plural Muscogulgee. The first
syllable, as pronounced by the Creek Indians, contains a clear, short
a, and that the name was written Muscogee and not Mascogee, is not to
be wondered at, for the English language, with its surd, indistinct
and strongly modified vocalization, will convert the clearest a into a
u. Whether the name Maskoki was given to the Creeks before or after
the incorporation of the towns speaking other languages than theirs,
we are unable to tell, but the name figures in some of the oldest
documents on this people. The accent is usually laid on the middle
syllable: Maskóki, Maskógi. None of the tribes are able to explain the
name from their own language.
The Cheroki call a Creek Indian Kúsa, the nation Ani-kúsa, probably
because Kúsa was the first Creek town they met, when coming from their
country along Coosa river, Alabama. But why did the English colonists
call them _Creek_ Indians? Because, when the English traders entered
the Maskoki country from Charleston or Savannah, they had to cross a
number of streams and creeks, especially between the Chatahuchi and
Savannah rivers. Gallatin thought it probable that the inhabitants of
the country adjacent to Savannah river were called Creeks from an
early time (Synopsis, p. 94). The French settlers rendered the term
Lower Creeks by "Basses-Rivières."
The Wendát or Hurons call the Creek people Ku-û′sha, having obtained
the name from the Cheroki. The Foxes or Utagami call one Creek man
U'mashgo ánene-u, the people U′mashgohak. B. S. Barton, New Views
(1798), Appendix p. 8, states that the Delawares call the Creeks
Masquachki: "swampland."
Caleb Swan, who wrote a report on the Creek people in 1791, mentions
(Schoolcraft V, 259) a tradition current among them, that they
incorporated the Alibamu first, then the Koassáti, then the Naktche,
and finally the Sháwano. In his time the Sháwano had four towns on the
Tallapoosa river, and other Sháwano (from the northwest) increased
their population every year by large numbers. One of these towns was
called Sawanógi, another Kanhatki. A Muscogee creek is near Columbus,
running into Chatahuchi river from the east. "Muskhogans" inhabited
the tract north of Pensacola.
The term is not derived from any known Maskoki word. If oki _water_
formed a component part of it, it would stand first, as in the
Hitchiti geographic terms Okĕlákni "_yellow water_," Okifenóke
"_wavering, shaking waters_," Okmúlgi "_bubbling water_," Okitchóbi
"_river_," lit. "_large river_." We are therefore entitled to look out
for a Sháwano origin of the tribal name, and remember the fact that
the Creek Indians called the Sháwano and the Lenápe (Delawares) their
grandfathers. It will be appropriate to consult also the other
Algonkin languages for proper names comparable with the one which
occupies our attention.
The Sháwano call a Creek person Humásko, the Creek people Humaskógi.
Here the hu- is the predicative prefix: _he is, she is, they are,_ and
appears often as ho-, hui-, ku-. Thus Humaskógi means "_they are
Masko_", the suffix -gi, -ki being the plural ending of the animate
order of substantives in Sháwano. A word masko is not traceable at
present in that language, but muskiégui means _lake, pond_,
m'skiegu-pki or muskiégu-pki _timbered swamp_, musk'hánui nepí _the
water_ (nepí) _rises up to, surrounds_, but does not cover up.
Miskekopke in Caleb Atwater's vocabulary (Archæol. Americ. I, p. 290),
signifies _wet ground, swamp_. Rev. Lacombe's Cree or Knisteno
Dictionary gives: maskek _marsh, swamp, trembling ground_ unsafe to
walk upon; Maskekowiyiniw _the Maskegons_ or _Bogmen_, a tribe of
Crees, also called Maskekowok, who were formerly Odshibwē Indians, but
left Lake Superior to join the Crees; their name forms a striking
parallel to our southern Maskoki. Rev. Watkins' Cree Dictionary, with
its English, unscientific orthography, has muskāg, muskāk _swamp,
marsh_; Muskāgoo _Swampy Indian, Maskegon_; Muskāgoowew _he is a
Swampy Indian_. Here the predicative suffix -wew is placed after the
noun, while hu- of Sháwano stands before it. The Odshibwē Dictionary
of Bishop Baraga has máshkig, plur. máskigon _swamp, marsh_; Mashki
sibi _Bad River_; a corrupt form standing for Mashkigi sibi _Swamp
River_. In Abnáki we have meguä'k _fresh water marsh_, maskehegat
_fetid water_.
The Sháwano word for _creek, brook, branch of river_ is methtékui;
Sháwano often has th where the northern dialects have s (thípi
_river_, in Potawat. and Sauk: sibe, in Odshibwē: sibi) and hence
the radix meth- is probably identical with mas- in maskek.
The country inhabited by the Maskoki proper abounds in creek bottoms
overflowed in the rainy season, as the country around Opelíka
"_swamp-site_" (from Creek: opílua, apílua _swamp_, läíkita _to be
stretched out_), Opil-`láko "_great swamp_," west of the above
(Hawkins, p. 50) and many other places rendered uninhabitable by the
moisture of the ground. The countries of the Cha'hta and Chicasa also
formed a succession of swamps, low grounds and marshes. In view of the
fact that no other general name for the whole Creek nation was known
to exist save Maskoki, and that the legend and the chroniclers of de
Soto's expedition speak of single tribes only, we are entitled to
assume this foreign origin for the name until a better one is
presented. Another instance of an Algonkin name of an Indian
nationality adopted by the Maskoki is that of isti Natuági, or the
"_enemies creeping up stealthily_," lit., "_snake-men_," by which the
Iroquois, or Five Nations, are meant.[39]
[Footnote 39: By this same name the Algonkins designated many
other Indians hostile to them; it appears in Nottoway,
Nadouessioux, etc.]
In this publication I call the Maskoki proper by the name of Creeks
only, and have used their name on account of the _central_ location
and commanding position of the Maskoki proper, to whom this
appellation properly belongs, to designate _the whole Cha'hta-Maskoki
family of Indians_.
It will also be remembered that several of the larger communities of
American Indians are known to the white population exclusively
through names borrowed from other languages than their own, as, for
instance, the Kalapúya of Oregon, who call themselves Amē′nmei,
Kalapúya (anciently Kalapúyua) being of Chinook origin, and the Pani,
whose name is, according to J. H. Trumbull, taken from an Algonkin
dialect, and means _lungy, not bellicose, inferior_, while their
own name is Tsaríksi tsáriks "_men of men_."[40] Foreign names have
also been given to the smaller tribes of the Shetimasha and Atákapa,
names which are of Cha'hta origin; v. supra. The Patagonian and
Argentinian tribes are mostly known to us under Chilian names, and the
Aimboré or Nkrä′kmun of Brazil we know only under the Portuguese
name Botocudos.
[Footnote 40: Prof. J. B. Dunbar, who composed an interesting
ethnologic article on this tribe, thinks that Pani is a true
Pani word: páriki _horn_, meaning their scalp lock; Magazine of
American History, 1880 (April number), p. 245.]