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Algoma is a placename given to many different places throughout the United States and Canada. Examples include Algoma District, Ontario; Algoma, Oregon; Algoma, Wisconsin; and Algoma Township, Michigan. Algoma also lends its name to companies such as Algoma Steel and Algoma Central Railway.
The origin of the word Algoma is not entirely clear; the following are definitions culled from several different sources
In the term Gitchegomee, the name for Superior, we have a specimen of their mode of making compounds. Gitche signifies something great, or possessing the property of positive magnitude. Gomee is itself a compound phrase, denoting, when so conjoined, a large body of water. It is the objective member of their term for the sea; but is governed by its antecedent, and may be used in describing other and minor, even the most minute liquid bodies, as we hear it, in the compound term mushkuagomee, i.e. strong drink. Under the government of the term gitchee, it appears to express simply the sense of great water, but conveys the idea, to the Indian mind, of sea-water. I have cast about, to find a sonorous form of elision, in which it may come into popular use, but find nothing more eligible than I-go-mee, or Igoma. A more practical word, in the shape of a new compound, may be made in Algoma, a term in which the first syllable of the generic name of this tribe of the Algonquin stock, harmonizes very well with the Indian idea of goma (sea), giving us, Sea of the Algonquins. The term may be objected to, as the result of a grammatical abbreviation, but if not adopted practically, it may do as a poetical synonym for this great lake. Such is, at least, the result of a full discussion of these names, with the very best speakers of the language.
The word Algona is frequently seen, substituting an n for an m. Various sources cite this as a corruption of Henry Schoolcraft's original word Algoma. Alcona itself is a placename used in the United States and Canada.
Lake Township is a township in Roseau County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 2,087 at the 2000 census. This township was originally called Algoma Township, which bears a name of Indian derivation, "formed by Schoolcraft from Algonquin and goma meaning 'Algonquin waters.' It designates a large district in Canada, bordering Lakes Huron and Superior. The name was changed sometime between 1954 and 1965.
Algoma District is a district and census division in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
Henry Rowe Schoolcraft was an American geographer, geologist, and ethnologist, noted for his early studies of Native American cultures, as well as for his 1832 expedition to the source of the Mississippi River. He is also noted for his major six-volume study of Native Americans commissioned by Congress and published in the 1850s.
The Anishinaabe are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing and Algonquin peoples. The Anishinaabe speak Anishinaabemowin, or Anishinaabe languages that belong to the Algonquian language family.
Nanabozho, also known as Nanabush, is a spirit in Anishinaabe aadizookaan, particularly among the Ojibwe. Nanabozho figures prominently in their storytelling, including the story of the world's creation. Nanabozho is the Ojibwe trickster figure and culture hero.
Gitche Manitou means "Great Spirit" in several Algonquian languages. Christian missionaries have translated God as Gitche Manitou in scriptures and prayers in the Algonquian languages.
The English word squaw is an ethnic and sexual slur, historically used for Indigenous North American women. Contemporary use of the term, especially by non-Natives, is considered derogatory, misogynist, and racist.
Papoose is an American English word whose present meaning is "a Native American child" or, even more generally, any child, usually used as a term of endearment, often in the context of the child's mother. The word came originally from the Narragansett tribe. In 1643, Roger Williams recorded the word in his A Key into the Language of America, helping to popularize it.
The Moingona or Moingwena were a historic Miami-Illinois tribe. They may have been close allies of or perhaps part of the Peoria. They were assimilated by that tribe and lost their separate identity about 1700. Today their descendants are enrolled in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma, a federally-recognized tribe.