What did Native Americans call the Atlantic Ocean?

Answer 1

Native Americans had no atlases, globes or world maps. They had no concept of other continents or different oceans and certainly no specific terms for the Atlantic.

Excerpt" The above has been mis stated, American Indians or Natives of Turtle Island did have concepts of Mother Earth and navigation, they had open trade routs in some of the larger nations and in fact named Turtle Island for the shape which they knew to be turtle shaped." It is a shame that the above depicts a rather un educated savage people inhabiting the Americas. They were very advanced for the time and at a time there numbers reached into the hundreds of millions.

Every tribe spoke its own language so there are many native words meaning "ocean" or "sea". A few are:

Natick.....................kehtoh, keitoh

Algonquin...............kitcikami

Powhatan...............yapam

Onondaga..............ganiataranen

Oneida....................kanyatalá·ke

Menominee.............kaeqcekam

Taino......................bagua

Abenaki..................sobagw

Maliseet..................supeq

Mohegan................kiht'han

Naskapi..................chiihchikimiiy

Maya.......................kaknab