Talk:Wahouma

Origin of name

• This says that Wahouma is a variaton of Ruhama and that Ruhama is an aboriginal name. As other articles correctly state, Ruhama is a Hebrew name from the Book of Hosea and that is why the church was named Ruhama. I haven't edited this because perhaps I am missing something. Was Wahouma an effort to make Ruhama an aboriginal Aemrican name? --David Bains (talk) 11:48, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
  • Hmm. I might pull that factoid until I can find a reference again. --Dystopos (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
    • This newspaper item from 1901 prints the claim that the church and the station share a native name, whose meaning was lost. I'll allow that the writer seems to take many licenses and does not seem well-informed. The references to a poem refer to a submitted verse printed in the previous day's paper. --Dystopos (talk) 21:50, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
      • The poet seems to have offered a rejoinder before the week was out. --Dystopos (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
        • A classified ad placed several months later indicates that the poet is "Jhon Bunyan Ware" [sic] who could receive letters at Woodlawn station, and that for $5 he could provide "the sweetest and greatest poem now on earth". --Dystopos (talk) 21:59, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
          • I did find a man by the name of John Bunyan Ware who would have been around 16 when the lines were written, but no indication that he considered himself a poet, or that he lived at Woodlawn, as all the dates on Ancestry.com place him in Smith County, Mississippi. --Dystopos (talk) 22:40, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
    • Meanwhile, In 1890 it was reported in the Montgomery Advertiser that Sir Henry Morton Stanley had documented "a new and interesting race of blacks, the Wahoumas, who were absolutely European in type and very intelligent," during his exploration of Africa in 1875. In his book, Through the Dark Continent, (1878) he describes three particularly beautiful concubines among a harem of 500 belonging to Mtesa (Muteesa I of Buganda, 1837–1884) as being of "the Wahuma race" (p. 308). Elsewhere, the "Wahuma" are described as shepherds occupying the "hollows and basins" (p. 423). Much of the book deals with a tribe at war with Mtesa called the "Wavuma", which he described as fierce and confident pirates. Another tribe, the "Wahumba" are described as successful herders of a flat basin in Ugogo country (p. 105) --Dystopos (talk) 22:36, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
  • The first mention I have found of Wahouma Station, on the East Lake Dummy Line, is from 1896. Another mention in 1898 uses the spelling "Wahuma".--Dystopos (talk) 22:36, 29 May 2024 (CDT)
    • Thanks for running this down! —David Bains (talk) 07:14, 30 May 2024 (CDT)
      • The East Lake dummy line went into service in 1887, so it seems likely the East Lake Land Co. came up with the name. If James van Hoose were inspired by Stanley's adventures that wouldn't surprise me, but it would surprise me if I were able to find any documentation of it. --Dystopos (talk) 08:14, 30 May 2024 (CDT)