Coochee

Coochee, coochie or coochi[1] is a term often used as a slang descriptor often used in relation to a belly dance and related types of movement. Most commonly "coochie" is used as a cute or slang word for a vagina. Other contexts, the term also applies to a Native American chief as well as to Florida place names, and has been used in popular songs.

The term is a slang descriptor often used in relation to a belly dance or wiggling, as in "Coochie Coochie dance", "Hoochee-Coochee", and the saying "coochee coochee coo" when tickling an infant. It is also used as sexually suggestive slang in the Southern United States, referring to the vagina.[2][3]

It may trace back to a song performed at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair[3] by a dancer named Little Egypt, who was filmed in 1896 by Thomas Edison for the Coochee Coochee Dance film short.[4][5][6] The song was created by Sol Bloom.[7]

One explanation of the etymology attributes it to the French word coucher, meaning to lie down.[8]

Another possible root is the Central American and Caribbean Spanish chocha, likewise a slang term for the vulva, possibly derived from the Mexican panocha, yet another slang term for the vulva, in metaphoric transference from the cones of brown sugar sold in Mexican markets.

After the sexually provocative dance became wildly popular during and after the World's Fair, the term "hoochie coochie man" came to refer to someone who either watched the performer(s) or ran the show. Alternatively, from the directly sexual meaning of "hoochie coochie", the term referred to someone who greatly enjoyed sexual intercourse. The erotic dancing was popular in film booths and was a precursor of the striptease.[9]

In Native American terms

The term is also used in another context. Coacoochee was a Native American chief, and the term "coochee" is used in various Florida place names including the Withlacoochee River and Croom-A-Coochee. The river named "Withlacoochee" may be from a Muskhogean dialect compounded of we ("water"), thlako ("big"), and chee ("little"), or "little big water", signifying "little river" in the Creek language. We-lako or wethlako may also refer to a lake, it may signify a river of lakes, or lake river. There are two rivers in Florida named Withlacoochee. One flows just to the east of Tsala Apopka Lake and the St. Johns River, which flows through a series of large and small lakes, and was called welaka by the Seminoles.[10] The other is in north central Florida in Madison County, and flows into the Suwannee River at the border of Madison and Hamilton counties, and the state of Georgia.

Coochie was also a station on the Texas and Pacific Railroad in Louisiana, taken from the name of the Seminole settlement in Florida.[11]

In music

Various folk and popular songs including the term have been recorded, including an Alabama folk song,[12] "Coochi Coochi Coo" by Ella Fitzgerald,[13] the song "Coochie Coo", and 2 Live Crew's "Pop That Coochie".

In literature

In the 1996 play The Vagina Monologues, "coochi", as in "my coochi snorcher", is one of the slang terms for the vagina.[1][14][15] The form "coochi" is derived from the more common "coochie" of the early 1990s.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Victor, Terry and Dalzell, Tom (2007) The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English p.160
  2. ↑ coochie at onlineslangdictionary.com
  3. 1 2 coochie at LLC's Dictionary.com
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ "MoMA | The Collection | James White, William Heise. Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance. 1986". moma.org. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  6. ↑ "Fatima's Coochee-Coochee Dance (1896) - IMDb". imdb.com. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  7. ↑ Hanania, R. (2005). Arabs of Chicagoland. Arcadia. p. 10. ISBN 9780738534176. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  8. ↑ Sonny Watson. "Hootchy-Cootchy Dance - aka Dance du ventre, Hoochi Koochi, Risque - Fatima, Little Egypt". streetswing.com. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  9. ↑ Stencell, A.W. (1999). Girl Show: Into the Canvas World of Bump and Grind. ECW Press. p. 7. ISBN 9781550223712. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  10. ↑ Simpson, J. Clarence (1956). Mark F. Boyd, ed. Florida Place-Names of Indian Derivation. Tallahassee, Florida: Florida Geological Survey.
  11. ↑ Read, W.A. (2008). Louisiana Place Names of Indian Origin: A Collection of Words. University of Alabama Press. p. 33. ISBN 9780817355050. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  12. ↑ Browne, R.B. (1979). The Alabama Folk Lyric: A Study in Origins and Media of Dissemination. Bowling Green University Popular Press. p. 220. ISBN 9780879721299. Retrieved 2015-03-24.
  13. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2012-08-02. Retrieved 2010-10-25.
  14. ↑ Eve Ensler (1996) The Vagina Monologues: The V-Day Edition, pp.11, 76-82, 153-4, 180
  15. ↑ Ultramontane Associates (1999) Culture Wars, Volume 19, p.94
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