Part V, Nova sote, Novas ote, NABASOTO, Neva sawed her...

As there is a possible Castillian cognate: Navas Oto, valley other, so too is there a possible French/Iroquois meaning for "Navasota": As Joutel, the priest who accompanied La Salle, recounted the last trail of his fallen hero, he was using his and La Salle’s rudimentary knowledge of Great Lakes tribal languages, and specifically Iroquois. The Dakota suffix for cloudy is “ota,” hence Minnes-ota, meaning water-cloudy. Having spent a good deal of time in the Great Lakes region, La Salle studied the Iroquois language, which is related to the Sioux languages, like Lakota, Mohawk and Cherokee. This would have been a word that La Salle and his men would recognize or even use. In another related native language, Ota means path. When the Nabedache said something like Nava soto, perhaps a name given to the river by these traders who passed through the area, the Frenchmen thought they heard something familiar. As in Nova Scotia, nova could mean new in French. Novas-ota could possibly translate as New Path. But now I have opened a can of worms.

There is still another Native American possibility! Iroquoian sote is child. In another French-Indian amalgamation, Navasota might be Novas ote, meaning “new children.” In another amazing coincidence, several possible translations could have context within the French point of view. Indeed, La Salle was blazing a new path, and gathering new children or subjects for his king. Of course, it might have been arguable who was new, or who were the children. The Caddoan Nabadache, who belonged to a confederation of tribes that stretched from Mexico to Missouri might have considered the Frenchman new children as well, observing how hopelessly lost they were. Imagine LaSalle explaining this ambitious if not arrogant Imperialist claim to the local “Nabedache,” christening them Nova Sote, and then they cheerily repeating some facsimile of this to the Spaniards who came after, who then forever named the river by their supposed proclamation. Perhaps. If you are like me, by now it is all overwhelming and I don’t care as much as I used to.

What we do know is this valley had been an ancient native source for buffalo and clay and the edible prickly pear. It should not surprise us that possible translations reflect this. The Yoeme remembered “Prickly Bones” and "Cactus Pottery," the Castilian’s the “Other Valley" of the Arms of God, and the French their “New Children.” In any language, this was a great flowing river named by forgotten passers-through that provided hope for a “Novas Ota,” a new pathway, in a strange and dangerous land. Somehow it all fits, and perhaps the name came from a single familiar phrase that meant different things to each group. But we will never know. And now I can sleep in peace.

Part IV Navasota, NABASOTO, the "Other Valley"

The possible Native American translation was intriguing, and I could have stopped there and felt like I knew more than I did. But it was significant to me that the name for the Brazos River first appeared on Spanish maps. It was most probable that the name was the one given by its “discoverers.” “Navidad De Soto” was still a better story, and still more believable, with all of its problems.

Then I accidently ran into another possibility, as I read James Michner’s book about Spain, called IBERIA. He mentioned a famous battle known as Navas de Telosa, in northern Spain. Probably pronounced NABAS, it turns out that “Navas” is not a Spanish word... and thus not recognized by modern Spanish speaking persons, but either Basque or more likely Castillian, and means... another coincidence, valley or plain. Imagine that. Oto is similar to Spanish otono for autumn, or might just be the castillian cognate for otro, for other. If we can imagine Don Alonzo De Leon crashing through the Texas plains, traversing up and down these rivers that went on forever, looking for that infernal Frenchmen, it would be easy to hear him recall the immense “Rio Brazos de Dios,” the “River Arms of God”... and since the word was arms plural, then the second, smaller of the two was merely the next arm, the “other valley.” Or, like a Latin language would, “valley other.” Navas otro.

What I am suggesting is that to early explorers, both of the rivers were the arms, plural, brazos of God. It was not the Brazo but the Brazos. On the map the cartographer wrote the name on the larger of the two, and the smaller was just the other valley. If it helps any, Leon, Spain, the home of Alonzo de Leon, is very near the Navas de Telosa, and in the region known as Naverre, a land of valleys in the Pyrenees, where this mix of Basque and Castillian languages would have been spoken, and where Don Alonzo would have learned this cognate for valley. But as of this writing, I have not found any mention of the Brazos River in Alonso de Leon’s journals! He had to have crossed it several times, on several expeditions, but never called that river by that name! Perhaps that is because it was as much a description as a given name. Kind of like "College Station." To add to the confusion, the earliest maps show the river we call the Brazos as the "Colorado," as in "colorful." And the colorful red and ochre clay banks of the Brazos sure make better since described as colorado than the white limestone shoals of the present day "Colorado."

My guess is was De Leon's manhunt for La Salle that figured out the confusion the cartographers had created, and he later suggested that appropriate names be attached to clear up the name mess. In fact, all along his expedition, he gave names to everything in his path, every landmark, campsite, river and stream, many names that never stuck and were mostly ignored by later travellers.

If Navasota is a Castillian word, used to name this branch of the Brazos, it might have been created by a later discoverer, perhaps the hidalgo (Castillian nobleman) for whom Hidalgo Falls, just a mile or so up the Brazos River, was named.

But, not so fast, remember Joutel’s “Nabedache? These forgotten salt traders were near relatives of our more familiar Bedias Indians, who were basically no frills Caddoes. In fact Nabedache was probably just the proper Caddoan pronuncian of our Bedias indians. Na Bedache: people [of] brushwood. They must have been more nomadic than their Caddo cousins, and may have been the ones who chiseled a network of trails with their feet along the Navasota River, that can still be found today. If you look, you can still find broken arrowheads along this ancient byway, and no doubt La Salle gladly adjusted his course to maximize use of this trail, as it led Northeast, in the direction he wanted to go.

This obscure tribe, if related to the Navasota river, helps prove that La Salle was murdered near here, as the infamous site was supposedly near the westernmost village of the Caddos. Larger more well known villages were near Madisonville and Huntsville. Some historians try to attach this moment of history there. But much of our history was played out on this essential yet nameless trail that was first broken along the “Navasota” by Native American runners.

But whatever it was, we can be sure that the river already had an Indian name when La Salle crossed it. It could be that it was name given by the Spanish conquerers, and then mimicked by the natives, like almost every other place-name in Texas. Now hang with me. In Spanish, the letter V is pronounced as a soft B. So if Castilian Spaniards were to write Navasota, they would still pronounce that nabasota. Suddenly the Castillian and the Yuman and the Bediasian (I may be the first person to ever use that word!) are headed into a collsion course with one another! Look for Part V, the last in the series soon!

Part III: What does Navasota mean? NABASOTO!, Do you still care?

Back to the origin of the name “Navasota.”

First of all, note the one lasting evidence in the Navasota Valley of all these early European adventurers. Bones. Lots of them. French bones, Spanish bones, and some buffalo bones. And no doubt a few Native American bones.

Joutel, the priestly scribe who accompanied La Salle and buried his bones, told of a southwestern tribe called the “Nabedache,” one of many tribes that met with La Salle’s party during their ill-fated march across Texas rivers. One historian offers that these were the ancient “salt people,” from one of several possible “San Pedro” communities in South Texas, yet associated with the Caddo Confederacy. During La Salle’s visit, they were ranging in East Texas, but they were nomadic salt traders and ranged all over Tejas, probably basing their operations from the prolific salt springs near present day Salado. And this may be all we know about them.

One possible candidate for kinsmen of this Texas tribe is the Yaqui Indians, who are an extraction of the Aztec-Tanoan family, and who may have once ranged from northern Mexico into South Texas. Their homeland in northwest Mexico is a valley whose river leads to the Rio Grande Valley, the ancestral trading destination of the Nabedache. If we look for traces of the Yaqui, indeed we have a nearby tributary of the Brazos called “Yegua” Creek, perhaps a related word. Yagua was a name of a Calusa village in Florida. They too were probably kin linguistically to the Yegua tribes here. Yaguara is the Native American word for Jaguar, who were once native here and the king of all animal spirits in the ancient Mexican pantheon.

It is postulated that centuries before, sea going Caribbeans came to a site called Poverty Point in Louisiana, and spread their gens and languages and panther cult on the Gulf Coast in all directions. The Yaqui speak a language called Yoeme/ Yuma and were most likely a part of a larger group we know as “Yuman” culture. They were fierce and never really tamed, finding refuge deep in Mexico in canyons with no names. They gave the Navajo tribe, an unrelated and isolated language group who arrived from far away in the Canadian Rockies, their name, meaning “prickly pear town”. So it is in the English - Yoeme dictionary where we find some cognates for Navasota worth considering. Ironically, or amazingly, Navas + Ota means “prickly bones” or skeletons. This possible translation may just be a coincidence, but is fascinating never the less, given the history of the area. Not only had European adventurers left many of their bones here, but Native Americans had slaughtered legions of buffalo along the banks of the Navasota for eons. Soto ote means to make pottery. Soto i = pot or kettle. Coincidentally, The red clay banks of the Brazos and the Navasota rivers made clay digging convenient and pottery making possible. The “muddy Brazos” and her little sister, the Navasota River were in fact the domain of one of Texas’ few pottery making tribes, the Caddo, who were famous for their earthenware.

Even the early Texans established a brick making operation here during the Republic years. So in another Yoeme phrase, Nava-soto would mean something like Prickly Pears and Pots! Or, more to our understanding, [where one can find and eat] “potfuls of cactus” This is exactly how native Americans named things, by the apparent characteristics. And as far as Native Americans were concerned, Nava Soto meant Wal mart! We cannot dismiss the importance of the possible relation of Navasota to the Yoeme word Navaho... Before you object too loudly, check out the massive prickly pears growing in the area. There are two different species.

Early naturalists traveling in Texas noted that this very area was where they first came upon old friends once observed in the Arizona territory... that is prickly pears, the ancient symbol of the Aztec empire. The presence of a these two major natural resources at the junction of the Navasota and Brazos rivers, had been historically important for thousands of years. The cactus may have been planted by the ancients on their timeworn trails through here, as a territorial marker. So PERHAPS the name Navasota stems from the Native American language of northern Mexico and connotes something to do with cactus, or pottery or both. Or even more interesting, the name meant an ancient killing field, a place where the ribs of great beasts and trespassers poked through the grass in profusion. That’s not bad for starters. And there is much much more!