Coharie is the name for the

Great Coharie Creek Great Coharie Creek is a long 5th order tributary to the Black River in Sampson County, North Carolina. Variant names According to the Geographic Names Information System, it has also been known historically as: *Cohary Swamp Course Great C ...

and its tributary the Little Coharie Creek, both in

Sampson County, North Carolina Sampson County is the largest county, by land area, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 59,036. Its county seat is Clinton. History Sampson County was established in April 1784 following the American ...

. The Great Coharie Creek is a tributary of the Black River that joins the

Cape Fear River The Cape Fear River is a long blackwater river in east central North Carolina. It flows into the Atlantic Ocean near Cape Fear, from which it takes its name. The river is formed at the confluence of the Haw River and the Deep River (North Carol ...

that flows into the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. Coharie also refers to the

Coharie Formation Leon County Pleistocene coastal terraces and shorelines were the geologic result of warming and cooling periods in what is now Leon County, Florida during the Pleistocene epoch. Overview Repeated growth and retreat of the North American glacial ...

, named for the creeks, a terrace and shoreline at about 215 feet above sea level on the mid- to southern East Coast. The name ''Coharie'' was adopted by the

Coharie Intra-tribal Council, Inc. The Coharie Intra-tribal Council, Inc. is a state-recognized tribe in North Carolina. The headquarters are in Clinton, North Carolina. Formerly known as the Coharie Indian People, Inc. and the Coharie Tribe of North Carolina, the group's 2,700 m ...

, a

state-recognized tribe State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under ...

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

. The tribe claims "descent from certain tribes of Indians originally inhabiting the coastal regions of North Carolina." In 1910, residents of Herrings Township along the Coharie creeks identified as being of

Croatan The Croatan were a small Native American ethnic group living in the coastal areas of what is now North Carolina. They might have been a branch of the larger Roanoke people or allied with them. The Croatan lived in current Dare County, an a ...

descent.

Etymology

''Coharie'' could be an

Iroquoian The Iroquoian languages are a language family of indigenous peoples of North America. They are known for their general lack of labial consonants. The Iroquoian languages are polysynthetic and head-marking. As of 2020, all surviving Iroquoian la ...

, perhaps

Tuscarora language Tuscarora, sometimes called , was the Iroquoian language of the Tuscarora people, spoken in southern Ontario, Canada, North Carolina and northwestern New York around Niagara Falls, in the United States, before going into hibernation in late 2020. ...

, word that translates as ''driftwood''.

References

Sampson County, North Carolina Rivers of North Carolina Names of places in the Americas {{SampsonCountyNC-geo-stub