Mayaimi

The Mayaimi were Native American people who lived around Lake Mayaimi in the Belle Glade area of Florida from the beginning of the Common Era until the 17th or 18th century. In the languages of the Mayaimi, Calusa, and Tequesta tribes, Mayaimi meant "big water." The origin of the language has not been determined, as the meanings of only ten words were recorded before extinction. The current name, Okeechobee, is derived from the Hitchiti word meaning "big water". The Mayaimis have no linguistic or cultural relationship with the Miamis of Great Lakes region. The city of Miami is named after the Miami River, which derived its name from Lake Mayaimi.The Mayaimis built ceremonial and village earthwork mounds around Lake Okeechobee similar to those of the Mississippian culture and earlier mound builders. Fort Center is in the area occupied by the Mayaimis in historic times. They dug many canals as other earthworks, to use as pathways for their canoes. The dugout canoes were a platform type with shovel-shaped ends, resembling those used in Central America and the West Indies, rather than the pointed-end canoes used by other peoples in the southeastern United States.