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"The proper name by which the Cherokee call themselves is Yun’wiya’, or Ani-Yun’wia’ in the third person, signifying “real people”, or “principal people,” a word closely related on Onwe-honwe, the name by which the cognate Iroquois know themselves. The word properly denotes “Indians,” as distinguished from people of other races, but in usage it is restricted to mean members of the Cherokee tribe, those of other tribes being designated as Creek, Catawba, etc., as the case may be. On ceremonial occasions they frequently speak of themselves as Ani’-Kitu’hwagi, or “people of Kitua’hwa,” and ancient settlement on Tuckasegee river and apparently the original nucleus of the tribe. Among the western Cherokee this name has been adopted by a secret society recruited from the full-blood element and pledged to resist the advances of the white man’s civilization. Under the various forms of Cuttawa, Gattochwa, Kuttuwa, etc., as spelled by different authors, it was also used by several northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee.

Cherokee, the name by which they are commonly known, has no meaning in their own language, and seems to be of foreign origin. As used among themselves the form is Tsa’lagi’ or Tsa’ragi’. It first appears as Chalaque in the Portuguese narrative of De Soto’s expedition, published originally in 1557, while we find Cheraqui in a French document of 1699, and Cherokee as an English from as early, at least, as 1708. The name has thus an authentic history of 360 years. There is evidence that it is derived from the Choctaw word choluk or chiluk, signifying a pit or cave, and comes to us through the so-called Mobilian trade language, a corrupted Choctaw jargon formerly used as the medium of communication among all the tribes of the Gulf states, as far north as the mouth of the Ohio. Within this area many of the tribes were commonly known under Choctaw names, even though of widely differing linguistic stocks, and if such a name existed for the Cherokee it must undoubtedly have been communicated to the first Spanish explorers by De Soto’s interpreters. This theory is borne out by their Iroquois (Mohawk) name, Oyata’ge’ronon’, as given by Hewitt, signifying “inhabitants of the cave country,” the Allegheny region being peculiarly a cave country, in which “rock shelters,” containing numerous traces of Indian occupancy, are of frequent occurrence. Their Catawba name also, Manterna, as given by Gatschet, signifying “coming out of the ground,” seems to contain the same reference."

An excerpt from Myths of the Cherokee by James Mooney
Originally published in 1900

P. 15 & 16 in the Dover Publications, Inc. paperback edition
ISBN 0-486-28907-9