The original name of Savannah, Georgia and “Olmec” Civilization was Yamakora!

It is a Chontal Maya word. The original city at Savannah was founded by Chontal Mayas! Yamacraw Bluff gets its name from the original city’s name.

Yama means “grassy coastal plain” in Chontal Maya. The coastal islands and tidal marshes on the coast of Georgia are virtually identical to those on the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico.

Yamasee means “Descendants or colonists of Yama.”

The starting point for the famous Creek Migration Legend was the Yamapa River, which flowed from the slopes of the Orizaba Volcano in southwestern Veracruz to the Gulf of Mexico.

Later, Apalachete Creeks settled near there and created the town of Apalachekora, which in English has become Apalachicola. They later migrated first to what is now Ocmulgee National Historical Park then to northern Georgia. Some later migrated southward to SW Georgia and the Florida Panhandle, where the main river was called the Apalachicola River by Anglo-Americans.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

Photos that I took in Tabasco in 1970 and 1971

Life is Stranger than Fiction

A substantial increase in income from doing anthropological research has enabled me to purchase many new Indigenous American dictionaries, including the recently published Chontal Maya dictionary. It is a hybrid language that mixed Totonac, Itza Maya, Western Maya, Amazonian Carib and Panoan from Peru. With it, I am able to translate many more place names in the Southeastern United States and Mexico.

I came down with the most deadly form of salmonella food poisoning on my first night of the fellowship in Mexico. Thus, I had to postpone my orientation meeting and tour of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia until July 6, 1970. My tour guides there the famous archaeologists Ignacio Bernal and Román Piña Chán.

Bernal quickly figured out that I was not from a rich Gringo family, wanting to donate money . . . so about five minutes into the tour, uttered “Idiotas!” and walked away. However, Dr. Piña Chán had taken a liking to me. He invited me back to his office to learn more about my background and drastically my study syllabus. Later, he invited me back to his office to have lunch with him and his lovely graduate assistant, Alejandra. We discussed in detail the two books on the Southeastern Indians that I had given him. Such gifts were traditional in Latin American academia.

The last entry that I made about this extraordinary meeting was: “After learning more about the towns, architecture and art of the Creeks in Georgia, he believes that they were a continuation of the Olmec Civilization.”

Dang! He was 100% correct!

Farewell dinner at a post Mexico City restaurant.