Members of the Oconee County Historical Society listen to Bob Burton talk about the Battle of the Bulge he was in. Bob Burton Oconee means "smells like a skunk" in Cherokee. However according to Wikipedia: "Oconee" is the Anglicized form of the Itsati ( Hitchiti -Creek) word Okvni , which means "born from water" or "living on water." [ citation needed ] This branch of the Creeks is better known for the name given them by the chroniclers of the Hernando de Soto Expedition in 1540, Ocute - which is the Spanish version of the Itsati word Okvte . Okvte means "Water People." According to Oconee-Creek tradition, their original homeland was in the Okefenokee Swamp of southeastern Georgia. In fact, a branch of the Oconee still lived in this vast expanse of water during the 1600s, when it was under the domain of Spain. The Oconee Creeks also once occupied towns in present-day northeastern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina and i...
