The astonishing Okinawa-Savannah River connection

The original name of Okinawa was Uchenaa (naw). The most common Native American name for the Savannah River in the 1600s and early 1700s was Ucheenaw.

There are many shared words between the original Austronesian language of the Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa, and the “Indigenous” American languages of Uchee/Yuchi/Euchee, Itza Maya, Chontal Maya and Carib.

In Okinawa, Uchenaa means “Island Homeland.” The Ucheenaw River meant “the Homeland of the Uchee.”

The Many Peoples of the South Atlantic Coast Series

Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

Lapita (Austronesian) Transoceanic Catamaran – c. 1500 BC

This is not a coincidence, In earlier articles we discussed:

1. During 2022-2024, DNA Consultants, Inc. carried out a comprehensive study of Uchee/Yuchi/Euchee ancestry. The laboratory determined that the Asiatic portion of their ancestry was Austronesian, not Siberian. This Austronesian-Polynesian DNA also appears in most Eastern Creek Indian descendants.
2. The frequently parroted statement by archaeologists that “No Polynesian DNA has ever been found in an American Indian” is absolutely false. Pre-Columbian Austronesian-Polynesian DNA is also found in certain Mexican tribes and in Indigenous peoples along the Pacific Coast of Peru and the Amazon Basin in central South America.
3. While carrying out research for the author of Countercurrents of Pre-History, I translated place names within the largest Uchee province, which was in the Savannah and Ogeechee River Basins. The Wassaw tribe/river/sound/island place name was the Samoan and Fijian word for “ocean.” Savanu, a name of a tribe and alternate name for the Savannah River was also the name of the inhabitants of the largest island in Samoa.
4. Also, while doing research for the same book in the online archives of the Osaka (Japan) Museum of Archaeology, I discovered that check-stamped pottery is primarily associated with the prehistoric Lapita culture in Taiwan, the Ryukyu Islands and Japan. It spread across Western Polynesia around 1,500 to 0 AD. It first appeared in North America around 1000 BC within the heart of the original Uchee Province in present-day Savannah, GA. The characteristic “stamped” decoration on Lapita ceramics was made with a comb-like tool, known as a dentate stamp, creating intricate geometric patterns.
5. The ,modern-day geographical places in Georgia of Ustanauli, Eastanolee and Oostanaula are Anglicized or Cherokee-nized derivatives of Uchee-nauli or their word for Uchee People.

Carib House on a river that flows from Venezuela into Brazil

Now you know!