Itihumma

Itihumma takes its name from the Houma people, whose homeland lay along the lower Mississippi and its tributaries. The name Houma is related to a Choctaw word meaning red. Their settlements stood among those of other Indigenous peoples along the river, and their hunting grounds were marked by a red pole shared with the neighbouring Bayougoula. When French explorers reached the area at the end of the seventeenth century, they called the landmark Baton Rouge, or Red Stick.