Ozark etymology -- LONG [was Ozark Pudding (1949)]

[Beverly Flanigan]

A follow-up to this very interesting history:  Is Kansas the same word
front-clipped?  Based on same tribal residence?

At 06:47 AM 2/11/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Larry H asked:
>
> >>
>Reminds me--is the derivation of "Ozark" from "Aux Arcs", supposedly
>applied to the Quapaw Indians because they used bows, generally
>accepted as valid, or just fanciful?  Is there an alternative (more
>boring but better supported) theory?  The OED takes us as far as the
>"Aux Arcs" but doesn't bring in the idea that they were bowed,
>leaving the name looking like a folk etymology in French.  The AHD
>doesn't even hazard an etymology, maybe a general practice it
>observes for proper names.
><<
>
>First, as to where to look for placename origins, the one general dictionary
>that gives many US placename origins is the Webster's New World College
>Dictionary (NOT, I repeat, NOT a Merriam product).  Placename origins have
>been a feature of WNWCD for many years.  I think David Guralnik decided to
>add them -- a brilliant decision (IMHO).
>
>If one wants to go further afield, still the best game in town for general
>coverage is Kelsie Harder's _Illustrated Dict of Place Names, US and Canada_
>(1976, 1985 in paper).
>
>As for Ozark, it is (almost certainly) an Americanization of the French "aux
>Arks", meaning 'in the country of the Arks (Arkansas) Indians'.  Not only do
>WNWD, Harder, and Stewart (American Place-Names, OUP, 1970) have this, but
>it was verified to me by the late, great Don Lance, a denizen of the Ozarks.
>[For the application of the spelling "Ozark", see the earlier ADS-L posting
>by Bruce Hunter.]
>
>The pronunciation of "aux Arks" (also sometimes spelled "Arcs") was without
>the final S (more on this below).  The name was given by 17th-century
>French-speaking trappers, and later came to be applied to the plateau and
>highland region in NW Arkansas, SW Missouri, and NE Oklahoma, where the
>Quapaw (branch of the) Sioux traditionally resided.  The Quapaw were also
>called the Arks (or Arcs), a shortening of "Arkansas", by the French who
>encountered them.  "Arkansas" seems to be the French version of what the
>Illinois tribe (further up the Mississippi) called the Quapaw, who lived to
>their south.
>
>The name "Arkansa" was first used by the French, after 1673, applied to a
>Quapaw village and its residents.  The earliest French exploration of the
>region (de Soto had been through in 1541 for Spain, but did not stay long,
>and left no trace, not even a DeSoto) was by Joliet, along with the Jesuit
>missionary Marquette, and a few French-speaking fur trappers.  They came
>down the Mississippi as far as the mouth of the present-day Arkansas River
>by July 1673.  A Quapaw village was near the mouth of the river.  Though the
>Quapaw were friendly, Joliet and his party did not stay long, apparently
>because they heard there were hostile tribes to the south.  But in March
>1684 French explorer La Salle and his party (who navigated the Mississippi
>all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico, and claimed the entire territory for
>France, calling it "Louisiana") came to the same village and stayed for some
>days with the Quapaw (whose hospitality they described in glowing terms)
>before heading further downstream.  The Quapaw village was near present-day
>Pea Ridge, AR.
>
>The French "Arkansa" came to be used to designate one member of the Quapaw;
>"Arkansas," also used by the French, was the plural.  The final S of the
>plural was not sounded, per French practice.  The French plural
>pronunciation and spelling led to the American practice, although the
>spelling "Arkansaw" actually appears in the act that created the territory
>that later became the state of Arkansas.  Of course, we still do not
>pronounce the final S in "Arkansas" -- well, most of us don't.
>
>So the "-ark" of "Ozark" and the "Ark-" of "Arkansas," names applied to many
>geographic features and political divisions, are the same element, stemming
>from a shortening of the French designation for one village of the Quapaw
>Sioux.  That village was in eastern Arkansas, near the Mississippi, while
>the Ozarks are in the western part of the state.  So the name (despite being
>a shortening) has a long and widespread history.  You might say that the
>shortening gave rise to the name Ozark.
>
>The "bow" theory, far from being a mot juste, is actually, at best, a beau
>jest.  And that's no bon mot.
>
>Frank Abate
>(currently working on a dict of US placename origins, to be published by
>Oxford UP next year)