Went out and looked it up. American Heritage Dictionary says it is Virginia Algonquian for cornbread. The original is poan or appoans. Originally meant a bread of cornmeal cooked on a griddle or in the ashes. Hominy and tomahawk are two other Algonquian words adopted into American English. I'm sure there are many other Indian words that we use every day and don't think about where they came from. George