Nodaway River

The Nodaway River is a 120 mile long river in southwest Iowa and northwest Missouri.

Etymology

The origin of the name "Nodaway" has been attrbiuted to a Pottawatomie name for "placid", a Dakota Sioux name for "crossed without canoe" and various tribes names for "snake."

Nodawa

Lewis and Clark camped at the mouth of the river on July 8, 1804. Their log and map both identify the river as "Nodawa." However there is no etymology for how they arrived at that name.

One version (that usually arises from histories of counties at the river's headwaters in Iowa) say that it is a Dakota Souix name for "crossed without canoe."//incolor.inebraska.com/rgcox/nodawayhist.htm. According to this story, the next big river to the Nodaway's west (the Nishnabotna River) was named "crossed with a canoe."

However, other tribes had other names meaning snake. The Missouri Department of Conservation in profiling the river^* has this:

The word "Nadowa" and similar sounding terms are found in many Indian languages. The Algonquian tribes use of the name was applied to mean "utter detestation" usually in reference to bitter enemies. The Menominee, Chippewa (tribe), and Ottawa (tribe) all have terms similar to "Nadowa" that refer to snakes, usually rattlesnakes. "Nadowe" was used by Siouan tribes indicating or in reference to enemies, chiefly Ioway and Teton (tribe). The term was often associated with snakes generally thought to be massasauga rattlesnakes.

The Sioux acutally evolved from the Nodawa root. According to the most widely report version Ojibwa pejoratively referred to the Sioux as the little snakes (Nadouéssioux as reported by the French or Nadowaysioux as reported bt English version). The name was then shortened by whites to Sioux.^*^* ^*

The Sioux wikipedia entry has this:

The name Sioux is an abbreviated form of Nadouessioux borrowed into French Canadian from Nadoüessioüak from the early Ottawa exonym: na·towe·ssiwak "Sioux". The Proto-Algonquian form *nātowēwa meaning "Northern Iroquoian" has reflexes in several daughter languages that refer to a small rattlesnake (massasauga, Sistrurus). This information was interpreted by some that the Ottawa borrowing was an insult. However, this proto-Algonquian term most likely is ultimately derived from a form *-ātowē meaning simply "speak foreign language", which was later extended in meaning in some Algonquian languages to refer to the massasauga. Thus, contrary to many accounts, the Ottawa word na·towe·ssiwak never equated the Sioux with snakes.

Lewis and Clark's first encounter with the Souix (the Otoe (tribe)) was to occur at Council Bluffs, Iowa a few miles from the Nodaway.

Neatawah

The case for the Pottawatomie name based on "Neatawah" for "placid" was bolstered by actions taken by the State of Missouri following the Platte Purchase in which northwest Missouri was annexed to Missouri.

Before much the purchase area (approximately the combined size of Delaware and Rhode Island) could be carved up into various counties, it was named Neatawah Territory and was administed by Buchanan County, Missouri. The Neatawah Territory was abolished in 1841 when new counties incorporated in the Platte Purchase territory.^*

Robert L. Ramsay in his book Our Storehouse of Missouri Place Names, 2nd. Edition, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1973 ISBN 0826205860 credits the Neatawah name as being the origin of the river.

History

Lewis and Clark camped at its mouth on Nodaway Island on July 8, 1804, by Nodaway, Missouri on the border of Holt County, Missouri and Andrew County, Missouri and took note of the river.

Lewis and Clark liked the spot enough that they recommended it for the winter headquarters of Astor Expedition of 1810-1812 that discovered the South Pass in Wyoming through which hundreds of settlers on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Trail were to pass.

The river is not navigable except by shallow fishing and row boats although steam ships navigated just inside its mouth. The river was the primary route for white settlers including Amos Graham and Isaac Hogan following the Platte Purchase of 1836 which opened northwest Missouri for settlement. Nodaway County, which derives its name from the river, was by far the biggest county in the purchase and the fourth largest in the state of Missouri.

Description

Major tributaries in the Nodaway River basin are Seven Mile Creek, West Nodaway River, East Nodaway River, Middle Nodaway River, Clear Creek, Mill Creek, Elkhorn Creek, and Arapahoe Creek. The biggest town on the river is Clarinda, Iowa.

The Nodaway begins near Fontanelle, Iowa as the Middle Nodaway River. The Middle Nodaway flows southwest to join the West Nodaway just below Villisca, Iowa. The East and West Nodaway join to form the Nodaway River four miles north of the Iowa-Missouri border and the river enters Missouri near Clearmont, Missouri.

The Nodaway River peak elevation is 1,400 feet at its headwaters and 800 feet at its mouth on the Missouri River in Nodaway, Missouri in Andrew County, Missouri.

The Nodaway River is a sixth order river with a basin area of 1,820 square miles.

The Platte River (Missouri) basin is to the east and the Grand River and Des Moines River basins to the northeast, with the latter defining the boundary between the Missouri River and Mississippi River basins. The west side is bound by the Tarkio River basin and in the northwest by the Nishnabotna River basin.

The Nodaway River basin is prone to extensive flooding and can contribute as much as 20 percent of the flood crest of the Missouri River near its mouth.

At Graham, Missouri its normal flow is 1,011 cubic feet per second. But during the Great Flood of 1993 the river was flowing 78,300 cfs at Graham.

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