Frontier Life: Borrowed Words and Concepts

As we've seen in previous posts, Natives borrowed goods and technology from Settlers which often made their lives more convenient.  The most obvious of these were firearms and the horse, but also trade goods such as metal for blades, cooking pots, mirrors, cloth, beads and needles.  However, close proximity between Natives and Settlers meant that the borrowing went both ways, Settlers taking up Native words and technologies to adapt to a more hardy life on the frontier.  We've seen examples of this with Squanto's teaching the Pilgrims to plant and hunt in their new home, and Polly Cooper showing Washington's men how to properly cook sweet corn.  Let's consider some more.

The most basic item was food.  In Europe, corn refers to the heads of grain crops and could be an archaic name for wheat or barley, as in the slang term for liquor, John Barleycorn.  Corn as we know it today wasn't in use in Europe prior to the Spanish and other explorers bringing samples of it back to their homelands.  Europeans still refer to this kind of corn as maize, a Spanish derivation of a Taino word used to refer to the plant.  Ditto for the tomato, potato, squash, and a dish that uses corn, beans and squash, called succotash, from a Narragansett word for broken corn kernels.  Hominy, a method of preserving corn in brine and jerky, salted, dried and preserved meat.  Although Europeans had been pickling with brine and salting meat since ancient times, they relearned these methods of preserving food from Natives.


Hollowing logs to make boats or stretching hides over bone or wood frames had been known in Europe since ancient times but was relearned by European settlers and explorers to North America.  The word canoe comes from a Spanish corruption of a Carib word denoting a hollowed out log, which was then used to make a boat.  Likewise a travois, poles crossed over the back of a horse or dog to carry loads.  The word travois is an archaic French term for a device used to restrain horses, but the concept of using a device to drag heavy loads is Native.

Tomahawks are a common tool used by outdoor enthusiasts and military forces alike not only as a weapon but as a small utility ax for outdoor jobs.  Many military forces issue tactical tomahawks.  The designs are based on Native adaptations of European blades, and maybe also their concept of European hatchets and smaller weapons known as boarding pikes, which were a small, combined hatchet and blade used by sailors in hand-to-hand combat.

Another practice borrowed from Natives was the buckskin suit, later made famous by frontiersmen and outdoor enthusiasts from Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett to Buffalo Bill and Theodore Roosevelt.  Europeans had been tanning and using leather for millennia but the style of the great shirt or hunting shirt (later the jacket) with fringes used to channel rain water off the garment (later for decoration), and the leggings (which became trousers), is Native, almost specifically based on Cherokee winter clothing.  Ditto for the iconic coonskin cap worn by Crockett or later adaptations with beaver and other skins.  Likewise, Europeans had used worked leather for boots and shoes for centuries but the moccasin, from the Powhatan word, durable, weather resistant and easy to make and repair, was Native.


Guerilla warfare in Europe was known as Fabian tactics, after Roman general Fabius (280 B.C.-203 B.C.), who developed a system of hit-and-run skirmishing to delay and wear down enemies.  The word guerrilla is a Spanish term for "little warrior", with the Spanish adapting such tactics to use against the Moors during the Reconquista (700-1492).  Native tribes had independently developed these tactics as a practical response to fighting and hunting in the heavily wooded eastern reaches of North America and, by the time of the French and Indian War (1755-1762), many American commanders were well versed in fighting "American style", something the British still hadn't caught on to when, on April 19, 1775, over 4,000 angry Massachusetts militiamen encircled and almost annihilated nearly 1,500 British regulars in the retreat from Concord all the way back to Boston.  The British did not know, nor do many Americans today, that the level of fighting skill displayed by these men was developed by commanders among them who were veterans of the French and Indian War, such as Captain John Parker of Lexington, who may have fought with Robert Rogers and John Stark.  Colonel (later General) Hugh, Lord Percy (later Duke of Northumberland), wrote, "they have men among them who know what they are about." 

Native loan words still exist in American and other dialects of English.  Caribou, a Mikmaq word meaning snow shoveler; caucus, from an Algonquian word for counsel or orator, speaker; chipmunk, an Ojibwe term for the red squirrel; eskimo, from a Montagnais word originally used to refer to the Mikmaq; hickory, from Powhatan for a drink made from the milk of hickory nuts; hominy, Powhatan for something which is ground or beaten; moose, from various Algonquian cognate words for elk; muskrat, a Massachusett word referring to something that bobs on the surface of the water; possum, a Powhattan word referencing a white, dog-like animal; papoose, a Narragansett word for baby; pecan, from the Illinois word for the nut; parsimmon, a Powhatan term referring to this fruit; pone, Powhatan for something which is baked; pow-wow, from the Narragansett word for a shaman or visionary; quahog, from the Narragansett word for this type of clam; Quonset, from an Algonquian word denoting a small, long place; raccoon, the Powhatan word for this animal; sachem, from various Algonquian cognates denoting a ruler or a chief; skunk, an Algonquian word meaning to urinate; squash, the Narragansett designation for it; squaw, from Massachusett and other cognate words denoting a woman (now considered offensive); terrapin, from a Delaware word for the animal; toboggan, a Mikmaq or Maliseet word meaning to drag; totem, an Ojibwe word referring to one's family or kinfolk; wampum, a Massachusett word referring to a white string of beads, just to name a few.