By Stephen Hammock
The Towaliga River is a major tributary of the upper Ocmulgee River, flowing across several Middle Georgia counties - including Henry, Spalding, Butts, & Monroe - until it empties into the Ocmulgee northeast of Forsyth. This is apparently a Muscogee word, not Hitchiti, but has had several spelling variants and different interpretations over the centuries. Some have claimed that it means “the place of the roasted scalps” while others have insisted that it really means “hair place” – which can be interpreted to mean “scalp place.” Other interpretations include “sumac place” and “tree grove place” and “old place.” Interestingly, while the word Towaliga was evidently never seen in print until the 1818 Sturges Map showed a creek called “Towan-li-gan,” there may be another explanation. Our interpretation is based on the common fact that Americans and their European forebears quite commonly misunderstood what native peoples said. Nowhere was this more common than in Indian place names.
The Muscogee-speaking Creek town of Gowalege was depicted along a stream flowing eastward into Ochese Creek (the original name of the Ocmulgee River) on the 1715 Beresford Map. And the stream is somewhat in the right area for it to be the modern Towaliga River. This important map was based on primary source documentation from Carolina traders. While there was apparently never another appearance of Gowalege on later maps, this was probably a misunderstanding of the name Kowaliga - or Kialijee, as Benjamin Hawkins spelled it - which was a daughter town of Tuckabatchee in Alabama. For example, Kialigee was the name of a Muscogee town near the Tallapoosa River in Alabama in late 1700s and early 1800s. Kowaliga is a community on Lake Martin in central Alabama where Hank Williams got the idea for his 1952 song “Kaw-Liga.” And Kialegee Tribal Town, which is a federally-recognized tribe, exists to this day in Oklahoma.
So if Towaliga is actually a corruption of something sounding like Kowaliga, what does the latter mean? “I kill his head” has been proposed as one theory, but this seems completely unsupportable since virtually everyone agrees that liga and its variations in Muscogee and Hitchiti mean “place, site, or spot.” Our interpretation, then, focuses on translating the ka- or ki- prefix sound. In fact, a common prefix using such phonetics could give Kowaliga a meaning like "Place of Mulberries." And the mulberry tree connection might just make sense, since it features in other Muscogee place names like Katala ("dead mulberry") and Kymulga ("mulberry grove"), in western Georgia and Alabama.
As for Towaliga, at least I’ve been educated on its pronunciation. Over a decade ago I mentioned the “Tow-a-lye-ga” River during a talk on archaeology before the Monroe County Historical Society in Forsyth. Afterwards, two elderly gentlemen approached me to state that they enjoyed the talk, but added that "we pronounce it 'Tye-laggy' around here, son.” I apologized and promised to be more careful in the future. Later I found out that other locals call it the “Tye-wee-laggy!” Towaliga is probably the most complicated of all Middle Georgia place names to untangle, so if we think we may have been successful in deciphering this one, the rest should be as easy as making Mulberry Cordial from scratch. Just don’t lose any hair interpreting these ancient words like I have.
Mulberry Cordial Recipe
Ingredients: 2 pints ripe mulberries, 2 cups granulated sugar, & 1 quart vodka
Directions: Place sugar in a 3-quart glass jar with a lid. Add in the mulberries and vodka; stir & cover. Place in a dark, cool place
Each week for about 3 months open the jar and stir the cordial. Strain the finished cordial through a very fine sieve or a cheesecloth into a decanter or a mason jar
Makes 1 & 1/2 quarts or 12 servings, and tastes simply delicious
References
Beresford, Richard (formerly the "Anonymous 1715 Map")
"Map of North & South Carolina and Florida." 1715.
Gannett, Henry
The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. 2nd edition. Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, Bulletin No. 258, Series F, Geography 45. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1905.
Goff, John H.
Placenames of Georgia: Essays of John Goff, edited by Francis Lee Utley and Marion R. Hemperly. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1975
Hammock, Stephen A.
"Shedding New Light on Middle Georgia: The Ocmulgee River Basin Archaeological Project." Early Georgia Vol. 36, No. 2, pp.129-143. Athens: Society for Georgia Archaeology, 2008.
Krakow, Kenneth
Georgia Place-Names. 1975. Second edition, Macon: Winship Press, 1994.
Read, William A.
Indian Place-Names in Alabama. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1937.
“Indian Stream Names in Georgia.” International Journal of American Linguistics Vol. 15, No. 2, pp.128-132. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949.
Sherwood, Adiel
Gazetteer of the State of Georgia. 2nd edition. Philadelphia: J. W. Martin & W. K. Boden, 1829.
Stewart, George R.
American Place-Names: A Concise and Selective Dictionary for the Continental United States of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.
Sturges, Daniel
"Map of the State of Georgia Prepared from Actual Surveys and other Documents for Eleazer Early by Daniel Sturges." 1818
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