Talk:Mayaimi

Mayaimi -> Miami

The City of Miami was named after the Miami River, and I have added that statement, which may strike some as blindingly obvious, to History of Miami, with a citation (actually, the relevant citation was already there). There is a statement in Miami River (Florida) that implies, but does not explicitly state, that the river is named after the tribe. I intend to consult the source cited for that statement to see if I can clarify it. The last mention of the Mayaimis that I'm aware of was in 1745, while the river did not become known as the Miami River until during the Second Seminole War, that is, during the 1830s, a gap that may be hard to close. Names of geographical features were often displaced in Florida in the 18th and 19th centuries, Lake Mayaimi becoming known as Lake Mayaca (after the Mayaca Indians of the St. Johns River valley) before becoming Lake Okeechobee, while the original Boca Ratones was an inlet at the northern end of Biscayne Bay before moving to its present location. That makes the derivation of "Miami River" from "Lake Mayaimi" plausible speculation, but OR until a reliable source can be found. -- Donald Albury 19:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Move back to Mayaimi?

This article was moved without any discussion, and with no clean-up. I think that it would be better moved back to Mayaimi, where it had been for years. If it stays at Mayaimi tribe, then several other articles need to be fixed. I would ask that nothing be done to those other articles until we can discuss moving this article back. -- Donald Albury 00:39, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't really see the point of the move. Kwamikagami seems to be trying to establish some consistency in articles on Indian groups and drawing a distinction between a "people" and a "tribe". In at least some of those cases it's wrong - he said some of the groups were "tribes" of the Timucua "people" when they weren't Timucuan at all. What would the distinction between tribe and people mean for the Mayaimi? Not to mention that there's no other article titled "Mayaimi" for this article to be confused with.Cúchullain ^t/c 01:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I've already moved back some that he changed to "tribe" when the articles clearly identified the subjects as chiefdoms. He cited Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(people)#Ethnicities as justification for adding 'tribe' and 'people' to article names. I certainly don't read that guideline as requiring or even recommending that those terms be added to article names. -- Donald Albury 14:08, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

The guideline would seem to argue against his use of "tribe" in cases like this one. I also don't read it as suggesting that either "tribe" or "people" should be use when there's no real disambiguation need. I say let's just move them all back, unless some individual article requires disambiguation.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Mayaimi/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

There seems to be a circular reference between the origin of the name and the lake name. It says the tribe got its name from the lake, but that the word "Mayaimi" means "Big Lake" in the language of the Mayaimi. If the lake was already named with their tribe name, didn't they name the lake instead of deriving the tribe name from pre-named lake? Confused...

Last edited at 20:30, 11 March 2011 (UTC). Substituted at 23:32, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Guacata

The text states that Granberry calls the Mayaimi "Guacata". I have not been able to verify that in the cited source. On page 21 there is a mention of "the inland Lake Okeechobee region (Guacata)", and a separate mention of the word Mayaimi as being from the Lake Okeechobee region. John Hann in Indians of Central and South Florida, 1513-1763 says that Fontaneda identified Guacata ("Vuacata") as a town on the eastern shore of Lake Mayaimi, associated with the Ais people, Tunsa, Mayjuaca, and Maucoya/Mayaca of the east coast.(pp. 62, 64) Hann lists Guacata and Mayaimi separately as people of the interior of Florida.(p. 11) Fontaneda listed Mayaimi, but not Guacata, as a town subject to the Calusa.(p. 26)

In Jerold Milanich's Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe, Fontaneda is quoted from one list describing Mayaimi as the first of the towns on Lake Mayaimi, but not mentioning Guacata.(p. 40) Fontaneda elsewhere lists "Ais, Jaega, Guacata, Mayajuaco, and Mayaca", again including it in entities of the east coast. Milanich places Guacata in the Okeechobee basin.(pp. 42-43)

It looks to me like Mayaimi and Guacata were separate entities on the shores of the lake (both were in the Belle Glade culture area), with the Mayaimi subject to the Calusa, and the Guacata associated with or subject to the Ais. I will research this more when I have chance. Does anyone have any insights on this? Donald Albury 22:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

I have removed any mention of Guacata, and the cite to Granberry that supposedly supported it, from the article. As stated above, the Granberry source does not support the identification of Guacata with Mayaimi. Other sources, based on the account given by the captive Spaniard known as the Vizcaino, place Guacata between Lake Okeechobee and the Atlantic coast, or close to the coast, grouped with the Ais and Jaega. - Donald Albury 02:00, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

References