2752: Nowata, Oklahoma Jul 3, 2024

In Oklahoma, there is a town called Nowata, transliterated from the tribal name given to the place by the then-displaced Lenape tribe, ‘Nuwita’, meaning ‘welcoming’. This sort of naming is used for thousands of towns and even states all across America, but what’s different here is that the Cherokee, forcibly moved there, use the name ᎠᎹᏗᎧᏂᎬᎬ (Amadicanigungun), meaning “water is gone”. This is because they misinterpreted the English transliterated name, Nowata, as “no water”. In a sense, while this was born of a misunderstanding, the arid plains of Oklahoma are much drier than anything the Cherokee would have been used to, so it is not an unreasonable assumption.