In the 1520s, a group of Spaniards ventured north from the Caribbean, exploring the islands off of what are now Georgia and South Carolina. Upon returning to their post, they informed its historian that they had observed foxlike animals with faces that were “muy pintada,” indicating that they were “painted.” This suggests that they had seen raccoons, and if so, it would have been the first European report of them in what is now the United States.
In his 1570s study of Mexican animals, the Spanish physician-naturalist Francisco Hernández indicated that the term for “badgerdog” was the name that the New World Spaniards used most often for the raccoon. But after learning that the Aztecs called it a mapachitli, he is said to have prodded the colonists into adopting this term. Eventually, it evolved into mapache, which now refers to the common and crab-eating raccoons of Central and South America. Names such as mapach and tepe Maxtlaton have also been recorded, and mapachín is presently used in Costa Rica. Not surprisingly, Spanish-speaking countries have different colloquial names for the raccoon, such as the aforementioned osito lavador or “little bearwasher” and tej ´on solitaria or “solitary badger” in Mexico. The latter is reminiscent of the other erroneous associations of raccoons with badgers. By the mid-seventeenth century, raccoons were probably observed in southern Mexico and were seen on the Trés Marías Islands off of western Mexico in 1686.
The earliest reference to the raccoon in Western literature is by another historical figure, Captain John Smith, who is linked to the famous Native American princess, Pocahontas. He reportedly first spelled it as rahaughcums as early as 1608. Undoubtedly, Smith was attempting to transcribe the vocalizations of the Algonquins who lived near Virginia’s Jamestown colony. They may have pronounced the word arakunem (which translates as “he who scratches with his hands”) as “ahrah-koon-em.” “Raccoon” is derived from arakun, the shortened version of arakunem. In 1612, Smith used another spelling for it: “There is a beast they call Aroughcun, much like a badger, but vseth [sic] to live on trees as Squirrels doe [sic].” He also spelled its plural form as aroucouns and rarocuns. Several years ago, archaeologists found a raccoon skull from the seventeenth century near what might be Jamestown Fort on Virginia’s Jamestown Island. The teeth are so worn that it probably lived for an unusually long time, perhaps as a pet. Though the main character in the popular 1995 Disney movie Pocahontas did indeed have a raccoon pal named Meeko, the real princess is just as likely to have had one for dinner.