Squaw, in its various Indian forms, signified any woman, but the early settlers seem to have given it the special significance of a wife. It was applied in the course of time to womanish men. Its derivatives include squaw man (the white consort of an Indian woman), Squaw Winter, and squaw-ax, -berry, -bush, -cabbage, -corn, -fish, -flower, -huckleberry, -root, -vine and -weed. Succotash, derived by the DAE from the Narragansett misickquatash, signifying an ear of corn, designates an American dish invented by the Indians and borrowed by the white settlers of New England. It apparently came into popularity relatively late, for the DAE’s first example of its use is dated 1751. True succotash consists of corn and lima beans, but I have encountered it with mashed potatoes substituted for the beans. Terrapin, in its original Indian form, meant little turtle, and the DAE indicates that it was first borrowed by the whites in Virginia. In the early days it was variously spelled terrapine, tarapin, tarapen and turpin, but the modern spelling appeared so early as 1738. The diamond-backed terrapin, so called because of the markings on its carapace, is not recorded before Bartlett’s fourth edition of his Glossary, 1877, but it must be much older. There is a legend in Maryland that terrapin were so plentiful on the Eastern Shore of the State in the early days that a law had to be passed forbidding the planters to feed them to their slaves more than twice a week. Toboggan came into American English through the Canadian French tobagan, a borrowing from the Micmac Indian tobakun, signifying a sled made of skins. The sport of tobogganing is first recorded by the DAE in 1856. Tomahawk was picked up by the settlers of both New England and Virginia in the earliest days; it seems to have come from a word common to all the Indian languages of the Eastern seaboard. Totem, now in universal use by anthropologists to signify an animal or plant associated with a given group of savages, and supposed to exercise some sort of influence over them, is said by F. W. Hodge,1 quoted by the DAE, to be derived “from the term ototeman of the Chippewa and other cognate Al-gonquian dialects.” It goes back to 1609, and totemism followed in 1791, but totem-pole appeares to be a relatively late addition to the American vocabulary. Wigwam is derived by the DAE from the Ojibway wigiwam, signifying a dwelling-place. The DAE notes that, though its use by the Indians seems to have been restricted to the East, it has been applied by whites to Indian habitations in the West also. The Western Indians actually used tipi, from which tepee is derived, or hogán, which is still in use among the Navahos. Wood-chuck is an example of folk etymology, for it has nothing to do with either wood or chuck. It comes, according to Webster, from the Algonquian wejack. In recent years the more common name for the animal (Marmota monax) has been ground-hog, which the DAE traces to 1784. But the first known example of Ground-Hog Day (i.e., Candlemas Day, February 2) comes from Schele de Vere, 1871.
The Indian loans in American English are by no means confined to terms borrowed from the languages of Indians inhabiting the present territory of the United States. Through the Spanish a great many Nahuatl words from Mexico have come in, and not a few of them have gone over into British English. In a paper published in 19382 Dr. George Watson of the University of Chicago listed a large number, e.g., chili, traced in print by the DAE to 1836;3 chocolate, in English use, to 1604; tomato, traced to the same year; avocado (pear), mentioned by George Washington in his diary in 1751; ocelot, a Western leopard (Felix pardalis); jalap, in use by 1682; coyote, traced by the DAE to 1834; chicle, the basis of chewing-gum; and tamale, traced to 1854. In addition, there are many Nahuatl words that are familiar in the Southwest, though relative strangers (save in cowboy tales and movies) to the rest of the country, e.g., mesquite, mescal, tequila, sapota and peyote. From the West Indian dialects, also through the Spanish, have come a number of words, e.g., canoe and tobacco. To these etymologists commonly add barbecue, which they derive from the Spanish barbacoa, itself a loan from a Haitian dialect But this Spanish barbacoa originally indicated a sleeping-bench elevated on stilts, not a device for roasting meat, and there has always been some difficulty about accounting for the change in meaning. In 1937 Dr. J. M. Carrière, a leading authority upon the French of the New World, suggested that barbecue may not come from the Spanish word at all, but may derive from a Canadian word, barboka, derived from a Western Indian language and signifying a frame for roasting or smoking meat.1 He showed that barboka was reported by a French traveler of 1770 in the exact sense of the American barbecue. “The word barbacoa,” he said, “never had in Mexico …, as far as recorded evidence can show, the meaning of a social entertainment at which animals are roasted whole.… It must have been taken over by the early American settlers in the Mississippi valley, where it was an old word among the French population.” But this was written before the appearance of the first volume of the DAE, In that volume evidence is presented that barbecue was in American use in the sense of a roasted animal by 1709, and in the sense of a social gathering by 1733. It is thus hardly likely that the word came from the French of the Mississippi valley; it is easier to believe that it came from the Spanish, and acquired its special American meaning soon after it was used in the original sense of a sleeping arrangement by William Dampier in his “New Voyage Round the World” in 1697. Indeed, it apparently acquired that meaning, at least in the West Indies, before Dampier’s time, for Edmund Hickeringill had used the verb to barbecue, in the sense of to roast, in his “Jamaica View’d” in 1661.
Canoe was picked up from the Indians of the West Indies by Columbus’s sailors. It seems to come from a Haitian word, canoa, and was taken without change into Spanish, where it remains canoa to this day, as it does in Italian.2 Like maize, it appears in English for the first time in Eden’s “Decades,” 1555, where its form it still canoa. During its first two centuries as an English word it was spelled cannoa, canoae, canow, canowe, cannoe, cannew, conow, connue, connou, cannou, cannowe, caano, canoo and canot, but by the end of the Eighteenth Century the present form became fixed. At the start it was restricted in meaning to a craft made of a hollowed tree-trunk, but after a while it came to mean any sort of savage vessel operated by paddles. In the course of time the more limited American sense of a small craft sharp at both ends, made of bark, canvas or some other light material and operated by paddles, supplanted the various English senses, and at present the English use the word exactly as Americans do. The familiar American phrase, to paddle one’s own canoe, is traced by the DAE to 1828. Canoeing as a sport did not arise until after the Civil War: it was launched by the publication of John MacGregor’s book, “A Thousand Miles in the Rob Roy Canoe,” in 1866.1 The DAE’s first reference to a canoe-club in the United States is dated 1872. By that time canoeists were already numerous on the rivers and lakes of the East. Said a writer in Harper’s Magazine in 1880:2
When MacGregor published his account of the Rob Roy’s voyage he established canoeing as a Summer pastime. The idea was not new; it was older than authentic history; but he gave it an overhauling and brushing up that brought it out in a form that was wonderfully attractive. The Rob Roy was so diminutive that her captain was able to transport her on horseback, but what she accomplished made her quite as famous as any ship in her Majesty’s navy. The English canoe-fleet was soon numbered by hundreds. The Rob Roy was superseded, as a sailing canoe, by the Nautilus, and many voyages, under an endless variety of conditions, have since been accomplished. Canoe-clubs were organized, and in an incredibly brief time canoeing became in Great Britain a national pastime.
Its introduction in the United States may be said to have-taken place in 1870, when the New York Canoe-Club was founded by William L. Allen. The Indian birch and dug-out, it is true, belong to the canoe group, but they are, at best, rude craft, unfit for general cruising, and had long before gone into disuse, and come to be valued only as relics of an uncivilized condition. Americans have enthusiastically adopted the pastime, and it is only a question of time when canoes will be as frequently seen on our bays, lakes, and rivers as sail and row boats.…
Long cruises have been made by Americans. The Kle
ine Fritz (A. H. Siegfried) has followed the course of the Mississippi from the extreme head-waters to Rock Island, Ill.; the Maria Theresa (N. H. Bishop) has cruised by inland waters from Lansingburg, N. Y., to the mouth of the Suwannee river; the Bubble (Charles E. Chase) in 1878 cruised from New York to Quebec by connecting waterways, thence by portage, through the Valley of the Chaudière, to the headwaters of and down the Connecticut river, to and through Long Island Sound, to New York. Mr. C. H. Farnham has recently completed a Canadian voyage embracing the Saguenay, its tributaries, and other water-courses. In 1879 Mr. Frank Zihler made a cruise of about 1200 miles, from Racine, Wis., to New Orleans. Many less extended cruises have been made, and clubs have been organized in the larger cities.
“A canoe,” according to a recent official and technical definition, “is a boat sharp at both ends, not more than thirty-six inches beam, and which can be effectively propelled by a double-bladed paddle; but a canoe may be propelled either by a double or single bladed paddle, or by one or more sails. No other means of propulsion shall be used.”
The author of this article distinguished between various types of canoes as follows:
The Herald and English canoes are reflections of the birch; the Nautilus, of the whale-boat; the Rob Roy of the racing shell; and the Shadow, the combination of all.
Canoe hatched the usual derivatives before 1800. The DAE traces canoe-tree (a tree suitable for making a canoe) to 1638, canoe-place (a landing place for canoes) to 1653, canoeload to 1691, canoeing to 1752, canoeman to 1755, and canoewood to 1762. Its first example of to canoe is dated 1794, but the verb undoubtedly arose much earlier. Canoeist is traced to 1879, canoe-racing to 1879 and canoer to 1898.
105. [Finally, new words were made by translating Indian terms, whether real or imaginary — for example, war-path, war-paint, paleface, big-chief, medicine-man, pipe-of-peace, fire-water and to bury the hatchet —, and by using the word Indian as a prefix.] Many of the former class naturally had to do with war, for it was predominantly as an enemy in the field that most Americans, down to the end of the Nineteenth Century, were conscious of Indians. The DAE traces war-dance to 1711, war-dress to 1724, war-whoop to 1725, war-path to 1755, war-hatchet to 1760, war-club and war-belt to 1776, war-party to 1792, war-eagle to 1821, war-paint and to go upon the warpath to 1826, and war-trail to 1840. The first examples of the last three come from Cooper, who was also the first, apparently, to use paleface (1821). War-drum was recorded in England so long ago as 1593, and war-cry seems to have been in English use in South America before it appeared in the present United States. The DAE does not list big-chief, but it traces big-medicine to 1846, and records various other words and phrases embodying medicine to the 1790–1860 era, e.g., bad medicine to 1815, medicine-man to 1806, medicine-dance to 1808, and to make medicine to 1805. Pipe-of-peace is traced to 1705, Great Spirit to 1790, fire-water to 1817, and to bury the hatchet to 1754. The last-named seems to have been preceded by to bury the ax (1680) and to lay down the hatchet (1724). Many such terms, once much more familiar than they are today, were introduced by the reports of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804–1806, e.g., to make medicine.1 Of compounds embodying Indian the DAE lists more than eighty, of which the earliest seems to be Indian-hemp, 1619. Among the others that arose before the end of the Seventeenth Century were Indian-field, 1634; -meal, 1635; -harvest, 1642; -purchase, 1642; -trade, 1644; -arrow, 1654; -bread, 1654; -land, 1658; -deed, 1664; -war, 1668; -dog, 1672; -claim, 1674; constable, 1682; -conveyance, 1683; -title, 1683; and -preacher, 1699.2 It used to be assumed that Indian Summer must have been one of the earliest of these compounds, but in 1902 Albert Matthews produced evidence that it was actually relatively recent.3 Mr. Matthews summed up his contentions as follows:
that the term Indian Summer first made its appearance in the last decade of the Eighteenth Century; that during the next decade the expression second Summer4 was used, indicating that there was no generally accepted designation for the supposed spell of peculiar weather in Autumn; that this spell itself was first noticed shortly before 1800; that the term Indian Summer became established about twenty years after its earliest appearance; that it was first employed in Western Pennsylvania; that it had spread to New England by 1798, to New York by 1800, to Canada by 1821, and to England by 1830; that the term is not merely an Americanism, but has become part of the English language in its widest sense, having actually supplanted in England expressions which had there been in vogue for centuries, and is now heard among English-speaking people throughout the world; that it has been adopted by the poets; that it has often been employed in a beautiful figurative sense, as applied to the declining years of a man’s life; and that it has given rise to much picturesque, if also some flamboyant writing.
Subsequent inquiries have forced a modification of some of these conclusions. Matthews fixed the date of the earliest appearance of the term as 1794, but the searchers for the DAE found that it was used by the famous St. John de Crèvecoeur (1731–1813), in 1778, in a paper describing the season as “a short interval of smoke and mildness.” In its figurative sense, designating the closing days of life, the term was used by De Quincey in 1830, but it is still regarded as an Americanism in England and it would be an exaggeration to say that it is in common use. Perhaps the main reason for this last is that the English climate offers nothing comparable to the balmy, smoky weather that usually prevails along the Atlantic coast of the United States from the end of October until the onset of Winter. But in the main Matthews was clearly right. Why the term should have been so late in appearing no one knows. It was not listed by John Pickering in his Vocabulary of 1816, and Noah Webster did not admit it to his American Dictionary of 1828. There is, in fact, no mention of it in any of the early writers on Americanisms brought together by Mathews in “The Beginnings of American English.” Regarding the origin of the term there is considerable difference of opinion, and the DAE contents itself with recording some of the guesses. C. B. Brown, in his translation of Volney’s “Tableau du climat et du sol des États-Unis,” 1804, suggested that the season probably owes its name “to its being predicted by the natives to the first emigrants, who took the early frosts as the signal of Winter.” But the “first emigrants,” as we have seen, never spoke of Indian Summer, though they undoubtedly marked its appearance and character. The Rev. James Freeman (1759–1835), in his “Sermons on Particular Occasions,” 1812, said that the term was “derived from the natives, who believe that it is caused by a wind which comes immediately from the court of the great and benevolent god Cautantowwit,” and William Faux, in his “Memorable Days in America,” 1823, hazarded the guess that the brush-fires common during Indian Summer were lighted by the Indians to pen up game, and that the colonists thus named the season after them. Philip Doddridge, in his “Notes on the Indian Wars,” 1824, suggested that Indian Summer was so called “because it afforded the Indians another opportunity of visiting the settlements with their destructive warfare,” and Dr. Harry Morgan Ayres, in 1942, offered the theory that it got its name because the early settlers associated the word Indian with a concept of bogusness.1 Said Ayres:
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