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

[Frank Abate]

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)