The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-10-11
WHENCE THIS srArE,s NAME
And what is the Meaning of its--suel is the Enquiry ef State Arehivist
 Owen.

It was the name of a noted Southern Indian tribe. whose habitat, when nrst known to Europeans, was in central Alabama. The greatest river in the
 state received its name from the tribe and from the river in turn the name Alabama is spelled In various ways by the early chroniclers, Spanish. French and English. some of which forms are here given: Alabama. Alebamon. Alia- bana. Alibamo. Alibamou, Alaban1u, AllabaIi1ou. The name occurs in three of the chronicles of De Eoto's expedition of 154o. written Alibano by La Vega. Alobamu by the Knight of Elvas. and Limamu by Ranjei; In the last form the initial vweol Is dropped and in both the last two m is used for D." an interchange of these two consonants being common in Indian languages. The name as recorded by these chroni- ciers, in this case. was the name Of a sub division Of the ChickAsaws, not the historic Aiabamas of later times.
 The popular belief. which is engraft. ed in number of current histories and geographies. is that Alabama signfies, Here We Rest" This very pleasant etymolgy can be traced to the late Judge A. B. Meek, of Mobile. Tn 1885 Judge Meek published his noted poem.
 ."rhe Red Eagle" In which occurs the following passage:
 Till over Aiabama's verdant breast.
 Tn pride the free.born Indian dwellg
 As when of yore, he styled It, Here
 We Rest"
 Soon after the publication or this book, Judge Meek was asked by friend. Judge W. C. Williamson, of Tuscaloosa. what authority he had for translating Alabama Here we rest. The reply was, None whAtever"--that 1t was merely a poetical ngment of his own; that rest rhymed with breast, and that was all of it. This statement of Judge Meek should be considered final and authoritative. And yet, in his Romantic Passages in Southern Vest ern History" published in 1851 two years later. Judge Meek, in a footnote referring to the chictaw fortress of Alibamu, writes: This Is no doubt the original Of the word Alabama, which Is said to signify In the Musoegee tongue, Here we rest" This footnote of 1857 cannot be reconctled with the statement of 1855. But Judge Meek was by no means consistent in his be- lief. In the same work just cited. in attempting to show that the Hlntbess were Identical with the AIabamas. he assumes that 'the soft word Alabama. whose derivation has been much disputed. is compounded of Alaba. the name of the tribe. and the guttural ejaculation ma or me, so com monly used by the natives in convers sation." Judge Meek lived before scientific Indian philology had been de- known that the euffix ma is, in Choc. taw, a competitive contradtstiuctive. used in a direct address to person or thing. somewhat corresponding to our English interjection +o." and hence can never form part or parcel of q tribal name. From these 1t is seen that Judge Meek. though the inventor Of the beautiful legend. Here We Rest" was evidently in doubt as to the stg. of Alabama.
 As to the Muscosee origin Of the name thorough experts in that dialect have confessed their inability to hnd in 1t any word or phrase similar to -Alas bama and meaning. "Here we rest"
 But the problem is not hopeless, Ac- cording to the recent investigations of Indianologists. the tribal name, Ala. ban1a. must be sought for in the Choc. taw tongue. as 1t was not uncommon for tribes to accept as a national or tribal name an appelIatton bestowed upon them by some contiguous tribe. The late Rev. Allen Wright, a highly educated Choctaw, translated the name as "thicket-clearers," compounded Of Alaba, "a thicket or mass Of vegeta- tion." and ano to clear. to collect. 10 gather up.
 H. S. Halbert, by independent study. about the same time, arrived at the same conclusion as that given by Mfr. Wright, and translates the name as vegetation gatherers.' that is. gath erers of vegetation in clearing land for agricultural purposes. The word .alaba" means such small vegetation ss herbs. shrubs and bushes which were gathered in clearing land, and the word can be applied collectively to thieket. Hence the translation as given by the Rev. Allen Wright and that of Mir. EIal- bert practically agree. The passive voice of amo is almo. In elaborating his views in defense of Choctaw local names, "Kantak almo" and "Oski a1mo,' meaning, respectively. China brier there gathered and cane there gathered. If the tribes or clans living at these lo- calities had received special names from their vacations they would have been known as Kantakamoo and Oslea- mo, just as the noted Indian tribe in the prehistoric past could we'll have re- ceived the name, Alba amo. by fusion of Nowels Albamo, from some neigh boring Choctaw.speak tribe not yet emerged from the hunting into the agricultural state.
 It is an interesting fact that the late Dr. Albert S. Gatschet. in his Creek Migration Legend. page S5, assepts the etymology of the Rev. Allen Wright. as above set forth.
 pr. William S. Wyman. of Tuscaloosa one of the beat known students of the state, inclines to the belief that the word means mulberry people. He says that on the oldest French maps the Alabama river is called "Coussa," from which he conjectures that the name Alabama was first given to 1t by the French after they built Fort ToulouSa in 1714. He says further that in Iris tan de Luna's time (fS5s) the river was sometimes called "olibahali," or "Ulli- bali which Is pretty close to the French form. "Alibamon," or "Alabs- mo-" In the language of the Alabama tribe he says that "UFiebehali,, means mulberry people.
 Enquiry among the early lndtans themselves appears to have been with out results as to the meaning of the word. General Thomas g. Woodward, in his fascinating book. "Reminiscences of the Creek or Muscogee Indians" page 12, says: 'I had heard Colonel Hawkins say in his time that he had made every enquiry in his power to as- certain If Alabama had any other name than the mere name of an Indian town, but never could. unless the name-as 1t was possible--might be the Indian cor. ruption of the Spanish words for wa ter, though he doubted that.
 Discarding. then, Here We rest" as something philoIogically untenable, but retaining it as something that may hold its own in the realm of poetry and romance we may 1ook forward