Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

[Brown]

Des Moines is the capital city of the state of Iowa. Most people living in the city do not know the origin of the city's name.

Well, here's a theory on the origin of the name, as reported in the Des Moines Register:

Michael McCafferty, a visiting lecturer at Indiana University who has spent decades researching Algonquian languages, agrees with the commonly held notion that the "Moines" in Des Moines is a French derivation of Moingoana, an Indian tribe that once lived along the banks of the Des Moines River.

But he insists that rather than denoting the tribe's true identity, the name was a ribald joke offered up to French explorers Marquette and Jolliet in 1673 as a bit of razzing between competing Indian communities.

McCafferty based his conclusion on the work of another linguist, David Costa, who wrote an article on the etymology of a number of Miami-Illinois tribal names, Moingoana among them. Moingoana, McCafferty cites Costa, originates from the word "mooyiinkweena" - which translates, politely, to "the excrement-faces."

Lest you think it unlikely that the natives to play jokes like this on visitors, conquerors and anthopologists, you should read some famous anthropology studies. This sort of practical joking is not at all unknown.

After the Marquette-Jolliet Mississippi expedition, the French, relying on Marquette's research and following their usual practice of naming rivers after the tribes that lived along them, began calling the Des Moines River "Riviere de Moingoana." By the end of the 1700s, the Moingoana - or whoever they actually were - had merged with other Illinois Indians and ceased to exist as a tribal entity.

The Miami-Illinois language became extinct around 1900, reducing even further the chances the true meaning of the name would ever be unearthed. Eventually, few people even realized a tribe called the Moingoana ever existed, and it became accepted that the shortened form of the tribe name, les Moines, referred to the Trappist monks along the river (although the name predated any monks, McCafferty said).

 

[Phil]

McCafferty based his conclusion on the work of another linguist, David Costa, who wrote an article on the etymology of a number of Miami-Illinois tribal names, Moingoana among them. Moingoana, McCafferty cites Costa, originates from the word "mooyiinkweena" - which translates, politely, to "the excrement-faces."

I'm not sure I read this correctly. I'm pretty "mooyiinkweena-ed" right now.

 

[jj]

Lest you think it unlikely that the natives to play jokes like this on visitors, conquerors and anthopologists, you should read some famous anthropology studies. This sort of practical joking is not at all unknown.

Fine day, my good man!

 

[LW]

Lest you think it unlikely that the natives to play jokes like this on visitors, conquerors and anthopologists, you should read some famous anthropology studies.

And sometimes you don't need any natives for that.

Somewhere in the Eastern Karelia is a lake that Karelians have called for centuries with the name Mulkjärvi, where the järvi means, literally "lake". So, a direct translation for the name to English would be "Lake Mulk".

Sometime in early 20th century Russian cartographers came to area to draw maps. They asked the name of the lake, heard it, and marked it to their new maps as "Mulkjärvi Ozero", where ozero is "lake" in Russian. So, now it was "Lake Lake Mulk".

Then came WWII and 150000 Germans tried to attack from Northern Finland towards Murmansk and Kirov Railroad. They captured a number of Russian maps and made their own maps based on them. As you can guess from the above, on these maps they translated the name of the lake to "Mulkjärvi Ozero See" where See is "lake" in German.

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Re: Re: Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

And sometimes you don't need any natives for that.

Somewhere in the Eastern Karelia is a lake that Karelians have called for centuries with the name Mulkjärvi, where the järvi means, literally "lake". So, a direct translation for the name to English would be "Lake Mulk".

Sometime in early 20th century Russian cartographers came to area to draw maps. They asked the name of the lake, heard it, and marked it to their new maps as "Mulkjärvi Ozero", where ozero is "lake" in Russian. So, now it was "Lake Lake Mulk".

Then came WWII and 150000 Germans tried to attack from Northern Finland towards Murmansk and Kirov Railroad. They captured a number of Russian maps and made their own maps based on them. As you can guess from the above, on these maps they translated the name of the lake to "Mulkjärvi Ozero See" where See is "lake" in German.

This is a lot like a common occurence in Texas ( and elsewhere I suppose ), where you hear people refer the " Rio Grande River "..

Of course these people are not Spanish speaking..

 

[arcticpenguin]

Of course Des Moines is a joke. What does Native American tribal history got to do with that?

 

[arcticpenguin]

In the introduction to his book The Lost Continent (highly recommended), Bill Bryson tells about his youth in Des Moines. He felt so sophisticated living in a big city like that. In the Spring when all the small town folk came to Des Moines for the high school sports championships, he used to hang out at Merle Hay Mall and offer to instruct the yokels in how to use the escalator.

 

[Brown]

In the introduction to his book The Lost Continent (highly recommended), Bill Bryson tells about his youth in Des Moines. He felt so sophisticated living in a big city like that. In the Spring when all the small town folk came to Des Moines for the high school sports championships, he used to hang out at Merle Hay Mall and offer to instruct the yokels in how to use the escalator.

This is no joke. The Younkers and Sears stores in Merle Hay Plaza (which is what Merle Hay Mall was called before someone got the bright idea of enclosing a bunch of neighboring stores and making it a "mall") had the first escalators in the north side of the city. People treated them like an amusement park ride.

 

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Brown:
Lest you think it unlikely that the natives to play jokes like this on visitors, conquerors and anthopologists, you should read some famous anthropology studies. This sort of practical joking is not at all unknown.

Martin Gardner wrote about something similar in "Did Adam and Eve have Navels?". Most accounts of cannibalism and cannibalistic tribes are gleaned from other tribes, who usually have little esteem for the purported cannibals. Nevertheless this hearsay has more or less been accepted as factual by many anthropologists.

Did anyone ever see the Gary Larson cartoon, where tribesmen frantically run about their huts, hiding all their modern day appliances because the anthropologists are on their way?

 

[Brown]

Re: Re: Re: Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

This is a lot like a common occurence in Texas ( and elsewhere I suppose ), where you hear people refer the " Rio Grande River "..

When I visited Texas, I noticed this as well. The "Americanization" of some of the Spanish terms was almost painful to my ears.

I used to live on a street (not in Texas) called "Juan Calle," which means "John Street." I pronounced the word "Calle" in the correct way, sounding something like "Kie-yay" (and then I would usually have to spell "Calle" for the benefit of those not used to Spanish pronunciation). Everyone else prounounced "Calle" as "Cal-lee," even though they correctly pronounced "Juan" as "Wahn." Even more irritating was the fact that they kept calling it "Juan Calle Street," as if "Calle" was Juan's last name, unaware that they had the Spanish and English words for "street" side-by-side.

 

[Frank Newgent]

Too bad this dubbing isn't always done with such elan:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~izapa/M-28.pdf

Shortly after Tenochtitlán; the Aztec capital, fell to the Spanish in 1521 the conquistadores turned their attention westward to Michoadin, which was reputed to be rich in gold and silver. At that time the inhabitants of the region received the name by which they are generally known today, Tarascan, although this misnomer perpetuates a misuse by the Spanish. On the demand of their conquerors, the hapless natives proffered their daughters to the Spanish with the word Tarháskua (father-in-law) to legitimize the relationship. However, when the Spanish at best insensitively and at worst derisively used the word to identify the natives, they quickly came to regard it as a term of derogation and a cause of embarrassment.

I'd recommend Pátzcuaro, Michoacán over Des Moines, Iowa, anytime.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

I used to live on a street (not in Texas) called "Juan Calle," which means "John Street." I pronounced the word "Calle" in the correct way, sounding something like "Kie-yay" (and then I would usually have to spell "Calle" for the benefit of those not used to Spanish pronunciation). Everyone else prounounced "Calle" as "Cal-lee," even though they correctly pronounced "Juan" as "Wahn." Even more irritating was the fact that they kept calling it "Juan Calle Street," as if "Calle" was Juan's last name, unaware that they had the Spanish and English words for "street" side-by-side.

Perhaps my favorite street name was given to a residential strip in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo. It's called Rue de Valle.

 

[a_unique_person]

In Melbourne, Australia, we have an annual street festival called Moomba, which is offically supposed to mean 'lets get together and have fun'. However, there have been some nasty rumours about other meanings surfacing over time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/community/fun/entry_55.shtml

The yearly festival in Melbourne, Australia, is called Moomba and at the height of its popularity hundreds of thousands of people attended the Moomba parades. Moomba is touted as meaning "Let's get together and have fun".

It is widely understood that when the original organisers wanted to name the festival they visited an old Aboriginal elder and asked him what they should call their festival. His reply was Moomba!

We are now told that this actually translates as something very similar to "Up your bum!"

Editor's note: Moomba indeed creates some confusion among the linguists. The word moom, mum, means also "bottom" in some Victorian Aboriginal languages, eg. in Wemba Wemba. Ba is a suffix meaning "at" or "in".

 

[Brown]

Perhaps my favorite street name was given to a residential strip in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo. It's called Rue de Valle.

You gotta be an old-timer to get that pun. Not to say that I'm an old-timer...

I always thought it was interesting that the San Diego suburb of La Jolla was pronounced by its Spanish name (thereby making it hard for people to find it on a map: "Where is 'La Hoya,' anyway?"). (If you recall, the Beach Boys mention La Jolla in "Surfin' USA." But there I go, sounding like an old-timer again.)

 

[arcticpenguin]

In St. Louis there's Kingshighway Boulevard

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

This is a lot like a common occurence in Texas ( and elsewhere I suppose ), where you hear people refer the " Rio Grande River "..

Of course these people are not Spanish speaking..

Nor are they Texans. All true Scots - err, Texans say Rio Grande.

 

[Brown]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

Nor are they Texans. All true Scots - err, Texans say Rio Grande.

Don't real Texans say "REE-oh Grand" instead of "REE-oh GRAHN-day" (the latter being closer to the Spanish pronunciation)?

 

[Sundog]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Is "Des Moines" a Native American Joke?

Don't real Texans say "REE-oh Grand" instead of "REE-oh GRAHN-day" (the latter being closer to the Spanish pronunciation)?

Hail yes. Got a problem with it, yankee?

 

[gnome]

I thought it was Ree-oh Grand-EE

 

[Brown]

Hail yes. Got a problem with it, yankee?

Certainly not. We "Fargo"-talking Minnesotans have plenty of strange pronunciations of our own.

I will say that the one Texas pronunciation that really was hard to get used to was the pronunciation for the Brazos River. The Spanish pronunciation is "BRAH-zohs" (which means "arms"), but in Texas, they pronounced it "BRAZZ-us."