Submitted by marmorset t3_yfuoqz in todayilearned
Right. Explorers would meet a tribe and ask who lived nearby. That tribe would then name the neighboring tribes. But they used their name for them. And explorers would use the name they first heard for a tribe.
Kinda like what assholes do when they hear a nasty nickname for someone.
oh you mean like FuckFuckelson?
Nusodumi? More like no u so dumb y?
nice
Ratjar? More like rat FACE!
I wonder how often they understood the meaning of what they were being told or how long it took them to get the real name.
Sometimes they don't. The conquistadors asked a Mayan what the land was called heard "Yucatan" ('I don't understand') and named the peninsula after it.
I wanna one day vacation on I Don’t Understand Peninsuela
I was moreso proposing the idea of that shitty razor reddit likes to reference all the time. Something like, "never attribute to malice that which can easily be attributed to incompetence."
Occram's?
Occam's is about simple explanations, which is very similar to the one I'm referencing.
I think it's Hanlon's.
Gilette's*
Me telling Oak his grandson is named chucklenuts
My family's name was changed that way. The census guy came around and my great-great-etc. wasn't home. "Who lives there?", "Oh, Lame Nicolas lives there". And from then on, that was our name. Kootzinicole.
Luckily my great grandfather stole another family's name when he snuck into the U.S.
Neighbors are sometimes allies, and sometimes enemies. A lot of uncomplimentary names for tribes were passed down in this way.
I'm an enrolled member of the Menominee Tribe of WI and we were named by the Ojibwe/Chippewa but it was complimentary. They were & are our friends.
The Chippewa referred to us as "the wild rice people" from their word "manoomin" (meaning good grain or berry) because they thought that wherever my tribe traveled in the old days that wild rice would flourish at our feet which was a good thing.
Wild rice isn't true rice. So when the French re-translated our tribe's name it became "folles avoines" or "crazy oats" and yikes...that's what we were called in the 1701 treaty of the Great Peace of Montreal but none of my ancestors spoke/read French at the time to know the meaning.
Our name for ourselves in our own language is Mamaceqtaw. But because all our US Govt. treaties refer to us as Menominee/Menomini, we are reluctant to change our name so as not to invalidate our treaty rights.
At least you lucked out in the name lottery. Imagine if your tribe had been named by your mortal enemies and rivals lmao.
The modern version would probably be like being named by a CoD kid.
As they say, the real TIL is in the comments. But in this case it's all new info, so bonus knowledge?
>Mamaceqtaw
does it mean anything? is it a 'translation' of manoomin?
Manoomin/menominee: name given to them by their allies; people of the wild rice in the allies' language
Mamaceqtaw: their own name for their own tribe. Simply means "people" or "tribe" in their own language, if my google is correct.
If you were translating folles avoine literally, it would be fool's oats rather than crazy oats.
English uses the same concept sometimes. Pyrite is also known as fool's gold for example.
Still not what they should have been calling your tribe of course.
Not really, it's an archaic use of fol (fou in modern French) in it's feminine form which is used in that context to designate plants that grow abundantly and seemingly randomly. You can search for "Herbe folle" if you want more info on that.
It does not translate well from French, it's an archaic use of fol (fou in modern French) in it's feminine form which is used in that context to designate plants that grow abundantly and seemingly randomly. You can search for "Herbe folle" if you want more info on that.
Exonyms VS endonyms. In OPs case they're called hostile exonyms. There are a lot of historical peoples we only know by exonyms. There are also many we know only by their native word for "people."
Like inuit
Ojibwe means puckered moccasin in Mohawk. It was because the way we sewed our shoes to make them waterproof
Yeah. Most Native names used in English translate as "Those Assholes over there".
Were the other tribes aware of their real names?
An alternative explanation is that Nadowessiwag means "to speak a foreign language. However, the Ojibwe introduced the Iroquis to the French as "Nadowe," or "big snake," which makes the snake translation more likely.
Iroquois is also an exonym by the way, they call themselves Haudenosaunee.
The adirondacks is a native word and from what I’ve read is it means “bark eater”. Other tribes, I think the haudenosaunee or the Algonquian, called the Adirondack tribe this name to insinuate what bad hunters they were. The shade!
Something similar happened regarding the Ho-Chunk. The term Winnebago was used by another tribe and as I recall implies they live in a smelly swamp.
The water coming from lake Winnebago does smell like a swamp. The tap water in Fond du Lac was vile.
Fond du Lac means "bottom of the lake" in French. Not super appealing either.
Yes, Winnebago translates as "person of dirty water."
Brand name on point, anyway.
Ha!
Can confirm. Source: Parents owned a Winnebago, lived in it for a year.
Reminds me of a trip I took recently that we through a place named Grand Marais.
The name translates to "big swamp".
Sounds much better in French!
The inner bark of white pines is edible and nutritious, might not be shade but a description.
Skimo is also an insult. They call themselves Inuit which means "people".
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Never say the Ojibwe indians did not have a sense of humor.
Who lives up there? Oh that’s Larry Sheepfucker.
You fuck one sheep....
Shut up Larry, we all know it was more than one
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>Hi, I’m Larry, a shepherd. This is my family flock
Ahh, so that's what "Welsh" means
A similar thing happened in the southwest U.S. Anthropologists were studying the people who lived in the Four Corners region between about 700-1200 CE before abruptly disappearing. In the 1930s, recognizing that then-current Navajo people might have some cultural connection to the lost civilization, scientists asked Navajo historians about them. The Navajo referred to them as Anasazi, and for close to 100 years, scientific documents and museum displays readily referred to the lost civilization as the Anasazi.
The only problem was that in the Navajo language, "Anasazi" means "ancient enemies." In other words, the Navajo viewed the lost civilization as interlopers and enemies of their Navajo ancestors. It took about 75 years before anybody noticed, but once they did, it was decided that calling this lost civilization "enemies" probably wasn't the best idea. So "Anasazi" is now a deprecated term, and the lost civilization is officially known as the "Ancestral Puebloans."
Whoa! My elementary school curriculum definitely referenced the Anasazi. I was always confused why subsequently all references used “Pueblo” as the name.
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Navajo: we do little bit of trolling
Whoops, I will update my cerebral index
If you ask the Navajo it doesn’t mean enemy, but I’m in no way an expert
The Navajo also call themselves Dine, because of course they were “named” by another tribe just like all the others lol
>the lost civilization as interlopers
Although it was actually the Pueblo who had been there longer, and the Navajo who were part of a migration that came down from the north.
What I just realized is Anasazi iny area is pronounced ana na see, which sounds much like and a Nazi. 🤔 Just a realization
You did Not See that?
Apparently a large number of immigrants from Finland ended up mingling with the Ojibwe later. The Ojibwe word for Finns reportedly translates to "People who sound like frogs".
basically true
"People who drink like thirsty water buffalo".
Later, the French would all be killed by the Predator.
I saw that documentary.
Not the first time I’ve heard of natives doing this to white people lol…when a little town near where I grew up applied to the post office to use “Sweetwater” they were informed the name was already in use, natives in the area said “Mobeetie” was their word for sweet water, so that’s what it’s been named ever since, but it was later revealed the name actually meant “Buffalo shit” lol.
>“Buffalo shit”
That's pretty funny.
The origin of the name of the city of Des Moines is lost to history. One possibly apocryphal story is that French traders often named landmarks after the people living near them. When trading with one tribe, the French asked the name of another tribe living by a nearby river.
The first tribe, wanting to discourage the French from taking their trade goods to another tribe, called them something like "those shitfaces over there".
The French, not realizing the meaning, recorded the name of the tribe, and thus the river, and then the city as "Des Moines".
I'm pretty sure it means A Whale's Vagina.
But I don’t see the link ?
"des moines" is just French for "of the monks" It could be a corruption of "demons" but it’s an unlikely name for a city
"The monks" is a false etymology. The French trappers didn't name it after monks. They named it after a native word, that was later shortened/corrupted to "Des Moines".
From Wikipedia: William Bright writes that Moines was an abbreviation used by the French for Moingouena or Moingona, an Algonquian subgroup of the Illinois people. The Native American term was /mooyiinkweena/, a derogatory name applied to the Moingouena by the Peoria people, a closely related subgroup. The meaning of the native word, according to an early French writer, is visage plein d'ordure, or in plain English, "shit-face", from mooy-, "shit", -iinkwee, "face", and -na, "indefinite actor".[7]
As a french speaker I had no idea, always thought of the literal sense in French, "of the monks" or just "some monks".
Shit faces. I like it. Faces de merde. 😅
Looks like the folks of Moingona, Iowa may want to consider renaming their town.
So what you're saying is, whenever someone is looking to party hard, they should say they want to get mooyiinkweena'd? lol
Drunk history should make a spin off covering language. I'd watch that lol
Having lived in the Des Moines area for 7 years, I can attest that very few, if any of the locals are aware of this. However, if they did, they would be quite proud, as Iowans seem to be proud and arrogant regarding any negative attribute of Iowa and Iowans.
"ah yes, and those are my neighbors, the... Shitheads..."
A troll for the ages.
Class A hater move right there
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"The people in the next valley? Bunch of small dicks, I can tell you that much."
Sioux be like “I was in the pool!”
So do we know what the Sioux call themselves or is that lost? I was under the impression there were still Sioux left to ask.
I believe their preferred name is Lakota.
There are several groups but essentially there are two main groups based on language divisions, the Lakota and the Dakota. Those are used primarily to identify them, but collectively they're the "Oceti Sakowin" which means "Seven Council Fires."
The ones I know say Sioux or Lakota Sioux.
My grandfather was from the Yankton Sioux tribe, he always called it Sioux. However my father always said Lakota (or Dakota), so i always say that as well. Depends on who you ask really.
Shady! =D
So it seems the Ojibwe were OG trolls.
Funny, I had a professor in college who was probably one of the most educated men on Great Plains Indians and he actually says that is an untrue or coincidental story. According to him, Nadouessioux was a was used by the Algonquin translators the French which meant "those who don't speak Algonquin." So when they would introduce French explorers to new tribes, the ones off the great Lakes would get called Nadouessioux. The French shortened this word to Sioux and the name stuck.
You can see this mistake on old maps marking Indian families as some Sioux family bounds would suddenly be far off from the rest.
I added a comment mentioning that as an alternative possibility, but that's unconvincing because the Ojibwe told the French that the Iroquois were named "Nadowe" or "big snakes."
Lmfao I bet you anything that little snake was really about their dicks
"Yeah those guys are not cool we call them the tiny penis tribe don't even bother talking to them"
It doesn't have to be to be an insult, though. "That group is a bunch of f**king snakes".
>It doesn't have to be to be an insult, though.
It doesn't HAVE to be but I'd bet you anything it was penis related
>"That group is a bunch of f**king snakes".
I'm no expert but I am pretty sure that usage of snake is a distinctly biblical/Judeo-Christian/European connotation that would not be part of Native American parlance prior to colonization
Snakes and snake imagery are often seen in a revered context in Mayan, Aztec, and other ancient Native American cultural heritages
I guess there would be less reason to think that snakes were untrustworthy, but there would still be literal snakes around, and that's not necessarily a good thing, even in other cultures where snakes might be seen in revered contexts sometimes.
The story I have heard, explorers asked a tribe what the name of that river was. The natives thought the were asking about the tribe that lived up that river. "We call them the mud people". The river and the region has been called Missouri ever since. Mud people.
“Sometimes I go about in pity for myself, and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.”
We're the Fugawi
Why do Native Americans refer to themselves by their translated names like "Red Snake" or "Black Eagle?" Why don't they just call themselves by the name in their actual language?
Two reasons I can think of:
> Why don't they just call themselves by the name in their actual language?
We do, but people always ask us what they "mean" so it's usually easier to just lead with that and wait for "how do you say that in Native American?" which sometimes they ask and sometimes they don't. Then there's the additional complication of having a good traditional Cherokee name like George or Willy, or Susan or Mary, and being asked "but what's your Indian name?"
And I'm really only partly kidding, English names are basically traditional names now among many Tribes since we've been using them for a few centuries.
(Edit: to answer the question actually asked because apparently I can't read the first time through.)
Does this guy know how to party or what??!
Yosemite means something like, "they are killers."
Am I understanding that they introduced a whole tribe as small dick betas?
I think one of the Midwest/Rust Belt states, maybe Illinois, gets its name from a native phrase meaning "Speak normally" because the locals and the French explorers/fur traders couldn't understand each other. Actually the majority of American states have Native names.
It's like if the census man came to my door to ask about my neighbors, and I was like "Oh yeah, that's Jerry the asshole who revs his motorcycle at 3 am."
And then Mr. Census Guy's like "hmm, yes, the asshole residence, you say? Let me write this down."
And from then on all his junk mail is addressed "Jerry Asshole or current resident".
Now I know what the Ojibwe references are in Shoresy now.
I'll keep a mind out for miig, ziig, Jim, Jim and Jim
TIL meeting early tribes was like meeting Brenda from the church that introduces you to people then immediately whispers in your ear the gossip about they "mmhmm now that one ain't worth spit I'll tell you"
I've read somewhere that nearly all tribal people refer to themselves as a variant of "people" or "humans", but the neighbouring tribes get all kinds of pejorative names. Ah, humanity...
It's Lakota, our neighbour tribe, they are pain in our assholes. We hunt deer, they hunt deer, we fish salmon, they fish salmon too. Majority of our tribesmen survived the winter, half of they died. Grate success
This was very typical all over America. The whites would ask the local Indians they’d just met “ok who are those people over there?”, and the response would be what they did indeed call them; “yes, well those are the No Good Bastards Who Go Around Stealing Other Peoples Horses” or some such.
That group over there are the “poupibuttes” Those ones are the “kakabreff”.
Native Americans = the orginal battle rappers
Hello! Meet my friends! We call ourselves "the People!".
Who them? Oh yes, those are our neighbors. We call them "the stinking dick-nosers".
But in French it probably sounds cool.
"Les gens malodorants qui ont un nez comme un pénis" is a mouthful.
That's funny, I just learned this the other day! I was investigating because someone in a TV show said they were Sioux, and it seemed like an exonym, so I checked into it
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Lmao but ojibwe ate and still eat dogs
remarkablyoblivious t1_iu5d2di wrote
I read in one of james lowens books that the names we use for most tribes are not the ones used by that tribe. It is usually a name they were called by a different tribe and it was rarely complimentary.