Attala
was the name of a young woman of the Muscogee tribe whose love affair with the son of the
chief of an enemy was an Indian "Romeo and Juliet" legend.
Coahoma
means red panther. It survives in the name of Coahoma County.
Copiah
meant calling panther.
Itawamba
was an Indian nickname for Levi Colbert, the son of an early Scots adventurer who when
called before a tribal council sat on a bench instead of on the ground as was customary.
For this, he became known as Bench Chief, or Itawamba (bench) Mingo (chief). In his later
years, he lived near what is now Tupelo, Mississippi.
The name Neshoba
means Gray Wolf.
Oktibbeha,
meaning Bloody Water, refers to a bloody battle between the Chickasaws and the Choctaws.
The name Panola
means cotton, and that county has long lived up to its name.
Tallahatchie
County takes its name from the Tallahatchie River, meaning river of rocks.
Winona,
an Indian word for first-born daughter, survives in the name of the
town.
The name of the Noxubee
River meant stinking water.
Pascagoula,
the name of a city and a river, meant bread people.
Tunica
County takes its name from the Tunica tribe, which lived along the Yazoo River. Yazoo
also
was the name of a small Indian tribe and Yazoo River is said to mean river of death.
Yalobusha
County gets its name from the Yalobusha River, whose name means place of the tadpoles.
Chickasaw, Choctaw and Yazoo
were the names of
tribes. The word Choctaw meant separation and referred to the ancient separation of the
Choctaw and Chickasaw bands.
Issaquena,
now a small Delta community, is a combination of the Choctaw word Issa, meaning deer and
okhina, a poetic name for river.
Leflore County, the small Leflore community and the nearby city of Greenwood all
take their names from the Choctaw chief Greenwood Leflore, son of the French trader Louis
Le Fleur. Greenwood Lefore, one of the signers of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek that
cost the Choctaws their homeland. Lefore remained in Mississippi, however, an immensely
wealthy man, and built the magnificent home Malmaison near what is now Teoc, Mississippi.
Pontotoc
was an Indian word meaning land of hanging grapes.
Tippah
is named for the wife of a famous Chickasaw chief named Tishomingo
who lived near
what is now Pontotoc, Mississippi. One of their daughters is said to have married a man
named Tom Bigbee,
whose name reportedly meant coffin maker and lives on in the name of the Tombigbee River.
The Natchez Indians are remembered in the name of the city of Natchez and the Natchez
Trace, one of the most romantic trails in American history and now a scenic parkway.
The Indian word bogue meant creek, and chitto meant not-so-big and survive in the name
of the town Bogue
Chitto. Homa meant red and is seen in the name of the Homochitto River and Homochitto National Forest. Hatchie was another name for a
river or creek, as in Tallahatchie River.
And there are hundreds more, clues to Mississippi's Indian roots still alive in its
modern geography.
