COUNTIES OF GEORGIA BEARING INDIAN NAMES.

COUNTIES OF GEORGIA BEARING INDIAN NAMES.

Seven of the counties in Georgia have been named to perpetuate the memory of the first American, the Indian. Of peculiar interest is the derivation and meaning of the names of these counties.

Catoosa: Gatusi in Cherokee language and means "mountain."

Chattahoochee: (Creek: Chatu "rock" hutchas "mark," "design": "pictured rocks"). A former Lower Creek town on the upper waters of Chattahoochee River to which it gave its name; seemingly in the present Harris County, Georgia. So called from some pictured rocks at that point.

Chatooga: (Also Chatuga, a corruption of the Cherokee Tsatugi, possibly meaning "he drank by sips," or "he has crossed the stream and come out on the other side," but more likely of foreign origin).

Cherokee: The tribal name is a corruption of Tsalagi or Tsaragi, the name by which they commonly called themselves, and which may be derived from the Choctaw Chilukki, "cave people," in allusion to the numerous caves in their mountain country.

Coweta: (Kawita). The name of the leading tribe among the Lower Creeks, whose home was at one time on the Ocmulgee, and later on the western side of Chattahoochee below the falls. According to one old Creek tradition the name means "those who follow us," and was given them by the Kasihta Indians, another Creek tribe who traditionally marched in advance when the Creeks invaded Alabama and Georgia.

Muscogee: (Muscogee, properly Maskoki) meaning unknown. Its derivation has been attributed to an Algonquian term signifying "swamp" or "open marshy land." Muscogee is the name by which the dominant tribe of the Creek confedracy knows itself and is known to other tribes.

Oconee: Was the name of a tribe which anciently lived on Oconee River, but subsequently moved first to the east bank of the Chattahoochee and later to Florida where it found a nucleus of the people later known as Seminoles. Oconee, their chief town, was situated, according to Hawkins, about four miles below Milledgeville. Weekachumpa, their chief, known to the English as Long King, and one of his warriors were among the Indians assembled to welcome Oglethorpe when he arrived in Georgia in 1732.—Compiled by Mrs. J. S. Lowrey.