I took the liberty of asking a friend who is somewhat of an expert on the Cherokee. Here is his rely as concerns the word 'wigwam' in reference to Cherokee usage. It looks like we were all correct. Joyce Gaston Reece "I am farmiliar with Dub West -- dad got Dub West's autograph on a bicentennial book that he wrote about Sequoyah, in 1976. We got a book #ed 387 out of a run of only 1,000 from this special edition. It is hard-bound. His book on Sequoyah is very precise and he documents his work very well, and he has no apparent bias that is not warranted in the book -- very main stream. I have a sister who lived many years in Muskogee. I was born in Okmulgee, a county or 2 west of Muskogee. Houston was adopted by the Cherokee and was given permission to represent the Western Cherokee in talks with Andrew Jackson (according to those links). So John Jolly probably did write Pres. Jackson on Houston's behalf. Houston used the word "Wigwam" and called his own home "Wigwam Neosho." I guess it was near the mouth of the Neosho River which rns into the Arkansas River near Fort Gibson. Houston's wife at the time was related to Jolly -- I believe that link Angel posted said Houston's wife was Jolly's niece, so alhto Wigwam is NOT a Cherokee word, it as a word farmiliar to Jolly's niece and thus Jolly would have known White people used it to describe American Indian homes at times. So I wouldn't rule out the posibility that Jolly might have used the word, or that Dub West is a credible writer and historian. Since the letter was written to Jackson, it was probably written in English. I wonder how much English Jolly knew? If he didn't know much, I wonder who translated the letter. Houston himself, maybe? "Wigwam" was a word Houston used . . . he might have translated it that way, if he was the translator." vance hawkins