by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner
Just discovered something so funny that I couldn’t wait another day to tell our readers. I thought it was odd that both Nancy Ward the Cherokee Heroine and Nancy Elizabeth Broom, the principal wife of Principal Chief Charles Hicks, had the same Cherokee name, Nanyehi. Wikipedia tells you that Nanyehi was the original name of both ladies and that they got their English names later. However, nowhere in contemporary printed descriptions of these ladies, do you see their Cherokee names mentioned. Actually, there is virtually nothing said in print about Nancy Ward during her life. Being the wife of a principal chief and well-liked at the local Moravian mission, Nancy Hicks was mentioned on several occasions in books or annual reports of the United Brethren Church (Moravians).
Turns out that both ladies were given their “real” Cherokee names in 1921 by Oklahoma Cherokee historian, Emmet Starr. He discovered that both ladies had the nickname among their grandchildren of Nanny . . . pronounced like Nah-nee. He reasoned that the grand-kids were trying to say a Cherokee word, which would be written in phonetic English as Nanyehi.
Nope, as all you Southerners would know, Nahnee, in the old days was what white children and some black children in the South called their grandmothers. Turns out that Nahnee is an ancient Indo-European word for grandmother, used by several languages today . . . particularly in India. Georgians seem to have inherited the word from their Irish and Scottish immigrant ancestors, who called their grandmother nanna or nannee.
Life is stranger than fiction!
The Americas Revealed 
Richard, I Don’t know when people will connect the dots on History: Egypt (starts kingdom in 3100 B.C)…Olmecs/ Sokee start calendar 3114 B.C. Point poverty begins 2400 B.C (major copper mining starts in Great lakes)..England taken by Bell beaker 24-2500 B.C. 1500 B.C. some people leave out of Egypt and start Mi-Tanni kingdom…”Eagle mount Earthwork” built at Point poverty same time. Somebody? that arrived spoke an ancient Indo-European language. The Olmecs/Sokee seem to be a likely people called “Danites” from Egypt by the Greeks. The Roman masons marks? from England seem to have some connection to this Maya brick town: Comalcalco. http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread780080/pg1
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I told this to Teresa, whose grandchildren call her Nana, and we are all howling our asses off!
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By the way, Nancy Ward’s maiden name was probably Spanish or Sephardic Jewish. Her descendants have been DNA tested. She was more Jewish and Southern Mesoamerican (Mexican) than anything else.
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Cherokee did not have maiden name.
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You don’t get it, do you? Nancy Ward did not have a drop of Cherokee blood. She was born, where Helen, GA is now. At age 16, she moved in with Brian Ward, who was at Fort James near where Elberton, GA is now. They later moved to near a Georgia Militia fort in present day Stephens County, GA. She never was married to Kingfisher, who actually died in the Battle of Etowah Cliffs in 1793. There was never a Battle of Taliwa nor a Creek town named Taliwa. The Cherokees were catastrophically defeated by the Coweta Creeks in the autumn of 1754. They signed a surrender treaty with the Creek Confederacy on December 16, 1754 which ceded all lands in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee that they had occupied since the first two years of the Creek-Cherokee War. Nancy did not move to the territory of the Cherokee Nation until after the Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse in 1794. Absolutely, the only mentions of her name, while she was alive were in GEORGIA newspapers and legal documents, where she was considered a highly respected Native American leader. She was so highly admired in Georgia that when she returned frequently from Ocoee, TN to visit with relatives and friends in Northeast Georgia, such visits would be noted in local newspapers. The fictional version of her life that is considered sacred scripture by Cherokee and Wannabe’s was dreamed up by a white man four years after her death and published in a dime novel. He may have been the same person, who pumped out dime novels about David Crockett.
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