Mr. Glenk presented the name of Mr. Robert Rebentisch for membership. He was elected. Mr. Hart made a motion that his resolution introduced at the last meeting be laid over until the next meeting. Adopted. The Society then adjourned. ORIGIN OF THE VARIOUS NAMES OF THE By T. P. THOMPSON. The great river that flows down the most fertile valley in all the world-the Mississippi-has been known by various and many names in its recorded history. The name it bears today appears to be the modern spelling interpretation of the original Algonquin Indian phonetic expression, Mech-e-se-be, meaning great waters. I have drawn down from various source books in my possession a chronology, which I have been able to trace from many maps and relations of the beginnings of American history. The first appearance of a great river on a map, at a point about the present mouth of the Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico, was on chart sent to Charles V, 1520, by Cortez: a large, forked stream entering a bay about the center of the arched northern boundary of the Mexican Gulf, is indicated: Rio del Spiritu Sancto (River of the Holy Ghost). Cabiza de Vaca did not name the broad stream he found on his way to Mexico from Florida in 1528. De Vaca was sailing along the gulf coast, and relates that he came across a fresh water outflow at a point about longitude 90°. It was more than a hundred years after de Vaca that DeSoto, on May 8, 1541, came to the great river which he called Rio Grande and which he described as being a league and a half wide. The point at which he crossed was just below the present Helena, Ark. Five months later his party returned to the Rio Grande, as they recorded it; then, after DeSoto's death and burial in the river opposite the mouth of the Red River, Moscoso, second in command, brought the remnant of this brave expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi, the first European to traverse the Father of Waters! Garcillasso, who wrote an account of DeSoto, called the river Chucagua; he says the Indians so called it. This was one of the early names of the Ohio. The Portuguese Knight of Elvas, who accompanied DeSoto, gives the nomenclature of the Mississippi as follows: At Guachoya it was known as Tamalisieu; at Nilco, as Tapatu; at Coza, as Mico (chief), and at its entrance, The River. These names, however, might have meant other streams. The early name they heard spoken by the Choctaws was Ochechiton, signifying the Great Water. The Spaniards conIcluded this to be the southern Indian name for the river marked on Cortez's map as Espiritu Sancto and which they colloquially among themselves called the Rio Grande. DeSoto left no maps. It was in a Florida map of Ortelius, in 1580, that the first interior course of the Rio Grande (the Mississippi) is shown. The name Rio del Spritu Sancto is here given to the stream. The old maps of this period named the principal stream flowing into the Gulf of Mexico variously as: Chucaquax, Canaveral, and Rio de Flores. It was not until the Governor of New Mexico, Peñolosa, left Santa Fe, in 1661, to visit the Quivera Indians, that the Algonquin name of Mischipi, as he spelled it, is used in the records. Peñolosa has the credit of being the first European to use the common Algonquin term, although the Arkansas Indians he heard it from were not of Algonquin stock; thus showing the river was known practically throughout it length in pre-pioneer days as Mee-chee see bee. In Volume 51 of the Jesuit Relations, edited by Thwaits, Allonez, the Jesuit missionary, is credited with using the word Mississippi for the first time by priest or pioneer. This was before the discovery by Marquette. For thirty years there had been indications in the Jesuit letters of a great river flowing south or southwest, its sources not far from the Great Lakes. Father Allonez, writing from Green Bay, speaks of "tribes who live to the west of here, toward the great river called Messipi; a memorable remark, this being the first time this Algonquin name of the river appears in any of the writings of the French. Marquette, in 1672, used the word Mississippi. Hennepin's map of 1683 names the Mississippi as River Colbert, which was the name given to the water by LaSalle March 13, 1682, with great ceremony, at Kapaha. LaSalle speaks of the Indian name Mississippi, meaning among the Ontaonas (Owtawans); the Great River, and Masciccipi, as spoken by the Illinois with the same meaning. When Iberville sailed westward looking for "LaSalle's river," in 1698, he was told by the Biloxi Indians that the great river he looked for was known in their language as the Malbanchia, and had been called by the Spaniards the River of the Palisades. The Choctaw traditional name for the Mississippi was Occochappo The Ancient Waters (H. B. Cushman). J. V. Brower, in his book on the Mississippi, page 282, gives, under the title of “Traditionary and Geographic Nomenclature of the Mississippi," the following observations: 66 "Prior to DeSoto's expedition, the savage tribes applied names to their respective possessions along its banks. From Cortez's map, Espirito Sancto, in two words is Meche Sebe, original Algonquin. In various relations of DeSoto's expedition the following Indian names for the great stream, Muskogean. in origin, are given: Chicagua, Tamaliseu Japatu, Mico, Rio Grande and The River. "Palisado and Escondido were later Spanish designations, the first referring to floating trees seen at the mouth, the second because of cut-offs, bayous, etc., making it difficult to follow its channel. "St. Louis was the original French designation then, conception by Marquette; Buade, family name of Frontenac, by Joliet; Colbert, after the eminent French statesman, by LaSalle ; Mischipi, by Freytas, who came with Penicaut in 1661 to the Arkansas country; Messipi, by Father Allonez, quoting the Algonquin terms, in 1667; Meschasipi, Hennepin's map, 1683; Michi Sepe, Laval's version; Labat, Misisipi later French version; Mississipi, pioneer western Mississippy; Mississippi, American version, nineteenth century. Gould says: 'An analysis of the word shows that it does not mean 'Father of Waters' at all. Thus: Thus: Mis-sisk-grass; Mis-sisk-ke-on-weeds; Mis-siskke-medical herbs, and Mis-ku-tuk. The broad bottom lands of the river were called Mis-ku-tuk; the tribes along the river, Mis-shu-tau, signifying 'meadow people;' thus the literal meaning of the word is the River of Meadows and Grass." From the above we gather that, having made the circle of many names and gotten back to an elaborated spelling of the original Algonquin designation, the largest of the linguistic tribes living on its borders, we may let "Great Waters, "Father of Waters," or "Meadow River" be its poetic interpretation. Mississippi, as it is now recorded, well names this noble stream, and, within its four syncopating syllables, there rolls from the tongue a name that brings to Americana students a world of romance and story. MEETING OF JANUARY, 1917. The Louisiana Historical Society held its annual meeting on the evening of January 17th in the Cabildo, with a good attendance of officers and members. The Secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting, which were approved. The following communication was read from Mr. Gustave Pitot, giving information about the painter Jacques Amans, who had painted many portraits in New Orleans: NEW ORLEANS, December 8, 1916. An article from C. W. Boyle, curator of the Delgado Museum, is herewith enclosed, which will prove interesting. Amans was always known to our family and others as plain "Jacques" Amans. He invariably signed his works "J. Amans." He married a Miss Landreaux, daughter of a sugar planter of St. Charles Parish, and, fearing the consequences of the Civil War, left with her for Europe, with her nephew and niece, Pierre and Marie Landreaux. He purchased a beautiful property near Versailles, "Lacour Levy," where he and his wife died, leaving all of their property to their nephew and niece. Among his portraits, of which I had any knowledge, are those of Mrs. Isadore Labatut and Honorable Felix Grima and his aged mother and wife; Armant Pitot and wife; Mrs. Alfred Bouligny; Gabriel Montegut, and others whose names have escaped my memory. An interesting painting of his is that of "Mariquite a la Calentura," as she appeared in the passage of St. Antoine, near the Presbytery of the St. Louis Cathedral, old and shriveled up, warming herself by a fire; she is accompanied by a young woman carrying a pail of water and a gypsy woman. I see her as she there appears in her painting, now in the possession of Miss Alice Pitot, and recall the days of my childhood when to meet her was an occasion of fright and a running off to my old mammy. Mariquite has left little to be known of her. I have forgotten her family name. Her father came to New Orleans with her, a young girl, and lived, I think, corner of St. Claude and Esplanade, on the site now occupied by the Augustin family. She was held indoors, like all Spanish girls, and forbidden to see any one alone; but love was stronger than her father's commands, and she eloped with a young man and her father never forgave her. It may be that the father's unnatural act tended to prey on her mind and eventually brought on a stage of occasional folly, which marked here declining years. I have no record of how and when she died. Another Amans painting held by Miss Pitot is the bust of a monk in contemplation before a skull. These two paintings are now in the hands of Mr. Glenk, curator of the Museum, where you can see them at any time. To the Editor of The Times-Picayune: A writer in your paper has asked for information of the deceased painter, J. G. L. Amans. From the best information at hand, I learn that he was born in Belgium, 1801, and died in Paris 1888. He painted in New Orleans from about 1830 until 1856; after which he went to Paris, and left as his agent here the firm of A. Rocherau & Co., and later Jules Andrieu of said firm. Many portraits by Amans are owned by old families of New Orleans, and there is at present one good example in the Delgado Museum of Art and another in the Louisiana State Museum. C. W. BOYLE, Curator Delgado Museum of Art. |