from Catawba
This word originated in United States
The tribe named the river, the river named the grape, and the grape named the wine. Or perhaps the tribe named the grape and the grape named the river. Whatever the sequence, the Indian tribe of South Carolina known as the Catawba are remembered in a grape and red wine now produced more in New York State and the Midwest than in South Carolina.
Present-day oenophiles are strangely silent on the merits of Catawba wine, but we are rescued by one of the great literary figures of the nineteenth century. In 1854, a gift from the vineyards of Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to write the poem "Catawba Wine." We take this opportunity to include three of the eleven stanzas:
Catawba is still said to be the principal wine grape of Ohio.
At an earlier time, back east, the Catawba were among the first Indians to become acquainted with English-speaking settlers. They maintained friendly relations with the newcomers, taking the colonists' side in the French and Indian Wars and the Revolutionary War, and have managed to keep something of their tribal identity to the present day. Their language belongs to the Siouan family because their remote ancestors came from Siouan territory in the Black Hills of the west. Catawba is still spoken by a handful of Catawba Indians at their 630-acre reservation near Rock Hill, South Carolina. From the Catawba language we also have yaupon (1709), a plant whose leaves make a bitter tea that is described as "emetic and purgative."
