What does Jamiroquai mean?
The name Jamiroquai is a conglomeration of the word “jam” and the name of the Native American peoples, the Iroquois, indigenous to central and eastern United States and Canada. The Iroquois Confederacy or Iroquois League – consisting of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca Indians – was the most powerful and advanced American Indian nation from the early seventeenth century until the American Revolution (in which most tribes joined the British and were massacred during the war). There are still some Mohawk and Cayuga living on reservations in Ontario, most Oneida are in Wisconsin. Most Iroquois now live in New York. The Iroquois population in the US and Canada is today around 29,000. In the liner notes to Emergency on Planet Earth, Jay Kay writes that the name Jamiroquai is put forth to the Iroquois and other Native American peoples “with the utmost respect to all of you because I know you are right.” The value placed on natural law and the earth in this message from Jay wo
