 Buffaloes [actually bison, of course] had long ago been present even in the mountains of western North Carolina, the last ones apparently disappearing westward by about 1760, but they were not forgotten to the Cherokee. However, this creek actually takes its name from an ancient legend about a buffalo who lived under the water near the place where the stream emptied into the river. Santeetlah is not derived from a Cherokee word. From Lake Santeetlah onward, the Cheoah River is reduced to a dry streambed, water coming only after heavy rains or in the handful of days annually in which water is released from the Santeetlah Dam.
In the northwest corner of Graham County, forming a few miles of the North Carolina-Tennessee border, is Slickrock Creek. It enters the Little Tennessee downstream from the Cheoah Dam. The name is a translation of Nvya Tawisgvhi [nvya, rock; tawisgvhi, slippery or slick]. There are several other streams of the same name, for example, the one a few miles northwest of Brevard, NC, but this is the only one that I have been able to verify as having the name translated from Cherokee.
Iotla Creek joins the Little Tennessee River at what is now the Iotla community. It stands on the opposite side of the river from the creek’s mouth. That location would have been a near ideal spot for a Cherokee town, and I think it was. In the lists of old Cherokee towns appears one Ayahliyi or Ayotlihi or Ayoree. That name translates to “offshoot place” or “sprout place,” probably in reference to its being a colony from a larger town such as Nikwasi, which lay only a few miles to the south. Iotla’s present pronunciation [“eye-OH-la”] is a rather good English approximation of the Cherokee “ay-o-tli” [sprout]. The survival of the -tl- in the spelling gives further credence to my suggestion. Bartram’s list included the town of Jore, and there is some indication that it may have been on Iotla Creek. I believe that Jore is a corruption of Ayoree.
Those mountains that Bartram called the JoreMountains are now known as the Nantahala Mountains.
A few miles west of Iotla is the Burningtown community and Burningtown Creek, in Macon County’s Burningtown township. On the creek, there was recorded a Cherokee town called Tikaleyasuni, which meant “place where they were burned” or something close to that. Linguistically, it contains the Cherokee elements that would justify that conclusion. So far as I can determine, there does not exist any historical information that might explain the name, so we assume that the town may have been near (but not on) a place where there had been a forest fire at some time in the past.
Stecoah Creek empties into Fontana Lake. Near the head of the creek is the Stecoah community. We have already seen Stekoa Creek in Rabun County. There were at least three Cherokee towns called Stikoyi, one of which was somewhere on this Stecoah Creek. The meaning of the name is unknown. [Fontana is not a Cherokee word; it is an Italian word that means “fountain.” The lake was named for one of the several small towns now lying beneath its waters.]
Just north of Rome, Georgia, is Armuchee Creek and the Armuchee community. Somewhere on that creek was the ancient town called Aumuchee [probably for A-mu-tsi], which appears on some of the lists of Cherokee towns. I am not convinced it was originally Cherokee, and I know no way to translate it, but from its name we have the creek and community names. Locally, the pronunciation is “ar-MER-chee.”
Canton, Georgia, is now said to be one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. As I wrote these words in 2007, the Hickory Log Dam was just being finished. It will create a lake of some 370 acres to supply water for Canton and for parts of other counties. There was a Cherokee town on the Etowah River near Hickory Log Creek.Its name was Wa-ne-a-sv-tlv-yi. [Please understand that I separate some names into syllables to make them fit more easily into English-speaking mouths. So often do I see words thus hyphenated, that one would have the impression that American Indians speak only in unmodula