Manahoac

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The Manahoac were a small group of native Americans. They numbered approximately 1,000 and lived in northern Virginia, along the Rappahannock River. They united with the Occaneechi, the Saponi and the Tutelo, and nothing else seems to have been heard of them since 1728.

[edit] Language

The language of the Manahoac is not known although John Smith states that they spoke a language different from that of the Monacan. James Mooney speculated that Manahoac spoke a Siouan language based on his speculation that the town called Monasickapanough was related to Saponi. He also claimed that the town Monahassanugh was the same as the name Nahyssan, Hanohaskie (a variant spelling of a Saponi town), and Yesaⁿ (Yesaⁿ is the autonym of the Tutelo). His evidence is based on the assumption that the initial syllable ma- or mo- is a prefix related to the Siouan locative root mo-/ma- meaning "place, earth, country". This evidence is now evaluated as dubious. It is probably that these town names are actually from the Virginia Algonquian language, which was the language of John Smith's guides. Additionally one town appears to be from Algonquian pidgin.

Because John Lederer stated that two of the tribes he listed spoke the same language, Mooney assumed Lederer's Managog was a misspelled Monahoac and therefore Monahoac and Saponi must be the two tribes with a common language. The common language may, in fact, be Virginia Siouan which was used as a lingua franca spoken by both Siouan and Iroquoian peoples. Thus, Mooney's interpretation is not supported by the primary sources. It may also be possible that the Manahoac were a group of peoples who spoke more than language.

[edit] References

• Goddard, Ives. (2005). The indigenous languages of the Southeast. Anthropological Linguistics, 47 (1), 1-60.
• Johnson, M. and Hook, R. The Native Tribes of North America, Compendium Publishing, 1992. ISBN 1-872004-03-2