Who Are The Washitaw?

The Washitaw name comes from the Washita River, a river rising in northwest Texas and flowing about 724 Km (450 Mi) generally east-southeast across Oklahoma to the Red River, where the southern Cheyenne Native American tribe lived. The original name for Washitaw is Washa. The Washa were a tribe that lived with the Chawasha, meaning “Raccoon Place (People)”.

The Chawasha were of the Tunican Linguistic Stock, locate on Bayou La Fourche, and Eastward to the Gulf of Mexico, across the Mississippi. The Chawasha and Washa tribes lived at Allemands on the west side of the Mississippi above New Orleans in 1739 A.D. The Chitimacha were also a tribe of the Tunican Linguistic Stock, living in Louisiana amongst the Washa tribe.

The name Washita is a derivative of the name Wichita, also spelled Ouachita. The name Wichita originated from the Choctaw term Wia Chitoh, “Big Arbor,” from the Choctaw words Wia, “Arbor” or “Loft-like platform,” and Chitow, meaning “Big”, which is a description of the large grass-thatched arbors, drying platforms, and houses, for which the people now commonly known as the Wichita have been noted. The name Wichita, like some other tribal names, was first carried westward by French explorers and traders from the lower Mississippi, Alabama, and lower Louisiana. The tribe was officially called Wichita or Wichitaw in government records beginning in the Camp Holmes Treaty of 1835 A.D., in which the Choctaw had a prominent part since the Wichita were living at the time within the boundaries of the Choctaw natiion.

The word Choctaw does not mean “Chocolate” as stated by some. Choctaw is the approved, anglicized form of the tribal name Chahta, a Creek word Cate, pronounced Cha’te, meaning “Red”. Choctaw is from the Spanish word Chato, meaning “Flat,” the Southern Pawnee, a Siouan tribe to the north, who were closely allied with the Wichita, known as Paniwassaha,meaning “Black Pawnee,” where the name Panioussa, found in French accounts of the Wichita. French traders from the Illinois country called them Pani Pique, “Tattooed Pawnee,” a name applied to the Wichita in publications descriptive of the tribes in the region of the plains as late as the eighteen fifties. 

The wichita call themselves Kitikitish or Kidikittashe, which has been given the interpretation of “Raccoon Eyed”. Thus the slang for dark-skinned wholly haired people being called coons. The Wichita were offshoots of the Pawnee Native American tribes. There are four confederated bands of the Pawnee tribe. 1. The Chaui, “Grand”; 2. The Kitkehahki, “Republican”; 3. The Pitahauerat, “Tappage”; and 4. The Skidi , “Wolf.” The Skidi, Skedee, or Skeedee, are the largest of the four bands, and have been closely associated and identified in their history with the Wichita who are called the “Black Pawnee” amongst the Sioux. The name Pawnee comes from the word Pariki, meaning “Horn.”

In 1541 A.D., Francisco Coronado contacted the Wichita in Legendary Quivira, southeast of the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in South Central Kansas. They were lured by the trade and driven by the Apache Native Americans and other hostile tribes, where they relocated (early 18th century A.D.) in northeastern Oklahoma. Under heavy pressure from the Osage Native Americans, they later moved to the Red River near Spanish Fort, Texas, and eventually settled in the Washita River and Wichita mountain areas of western Oklahoma. The osage are one of the five tribes in the Dhegiha group of the Siouan Linguistic family. The name Osage is a French corruption of the tribal name Wazhe’zhe. It is close to the Omaha term  Wabazhi, “One who carries a message.” The Osage capture and mixed with the Wichita, note also that the Osage tribe used the Naja symbol, which is an inverted crescent moon, with a six pointed star in the center, the Sacred Seal of the Malian Moors who gave it to them when they lived amongst them.

Ques: Is George Washington related to the Washitaw Native American tribe?

 Ans: No, George Washington’s ancestory is of English, and the Washitaw tribe, is derived from the word Washita, which is sometimes spelled Washitaw it’s a Native American tribal name, one of many belonging to the same people. 

Ques: Why does everyone say Washitaw and Washington are the same words?

Ans: This is because phonetically they sound the same. The English word Washington is what gave birth to the name of the Washita River, which is a river, not a people, the people became Washitaw who lived near that river, thus when you hear the word Washinton you think Washitaw River, which is located in Oklahoma.

Ques: Where does the English word or name Washington come from?

Ans: The name Washington comes from the English word Wessingatun, Wassingatun, literally “Wassa’s Town”, from the Old English Tun, originally meant “Enclosure”, later “Estate of Feudal Lord”, and then “Village”. The word is a loan from Celtic Dun-o, meaning “Fortified Place”; compared to Old Irish Dun, meaning “Fortress” under Edimburgo. So the name Washington is an English word. And note the root is Wassa and not Washa. So President George Washington was not of the Washitaw tribe in any form or fashion. 

Ques: How can one be a Washitaw Moor?

Ans: Because the Malian Moors coming to these shores seeking their ancestors, the ancient Nuwbuns or Nuwaubians who walked westward before the Continental Drift and settled on this part of the planet as Olmecs much later the Malian Moors came again by sea as navigator to these shores and mixed with the Washa Tribe of Native Americans, the off spring would be Washitaw Moors or more properly moors that mixed with washo, all of their ancestors are NUWAUBIANS.

Ques: So the  Washitaw name of Native Americans were related to Moors in what way?

Ans: By blood and by mingling and marriage.

Ques: What is the relationship between the Washitaw and the Tunica?

Ans: The Empress Verdiacee, states that the Tunica are descendants of Henry Turner. Henry Turner was the son of Joseph De Maison Rouge. The Joseph De Maison Rouge married Anniamareea, a Washo woman, daugter of the Old Empress, Ayimareeya. This is why the Tunica were so friendly with the French, they were descendants of the French. On page 193 of Indian Tribes of North America it states: “They were firm friends of the French and rendered them invaluable service in all difficulties with the tribes higher up and particularly against the Natchez….” The word Tunica means “The people or those who are the people”. The Chroniclers of De Soto named them Tunica, however they called themselves Tonikan. When they were first visited by Europeans, they lived in Mississippi on the lower Yazoo River. However, an early location for them is on the eastern side of Mississippi called “Tunica Oldfields” near Friar Point, not many miles below Helana Arkansas. There were also Tunica villages in the salt making region of northeastern Louisiana. In 1702 A.D. the Tunica tribe left the Yazoo River and were received by the Houma, located on Bayou St. John near New Orleans, they afterward re-ascended the river to the present Ascension Parish and remained there until some years after the Louisiana Purchase. Nathaniel Turner Born October 2, 1800 A.D. , known as the slave rebel was given the name Turner because he was born into slavery on the farm of Benjamin Turner. This does not make him a descendant of Henry Turner.