Proposed etymologies for the phrase have varied, and the origin was obscure as early as the late nineteenth century.
Tradition relates that one of their chiefs became so addicted to the vice of lying that in disgust they drove him away from their territory.
It was there that the exiled Choctaw chief retired with his family and a few adherents, near a bayou which discharges itself into the lake.
From this circumstance this tract of land received, and still retains the appellation of Chef Menteur, or "Lying Chief".
[2] In the case of the latter, "lying" is used metaphorically, to describe the twisting and turning of the unregulated and unstable river's path through the delta.