Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a Native American; a Native American language.

c.1815		J.K. Paulding Bucktails (1847) V ii: I’m half horse, half alligator, and a little of the Ingen, I guess.
1825		J. J. Neal Brother Jonathan III 386: Injunn, or no Injunn – she’d royal blood in her.
1832		J.K. Paulding Westward Ho! I 76: And on every hand we saw excellent land, / Where none but the Ingens resided.
1835		D. Crockett Col. Crockett’s Tour to North and Down East 228: I’ll send you the song we used tu sing when we fit the Ingins.
1837		R.M. Bird Nick of the Woods I 62: A dead Injun, to be sure.
1843		L.H. Medina Nick of the Woods I i: As proper a fellow as ever you saw. Killed two Injuns once, single-handed.
1857		White Cloud Kansas Chief (KS) 4 June 1/3: ‘This old tool, ’ he said, tapping his rifle [...] ‘She shoots centre, she does; and thar’s never a bar, or buffler, or injun, that’s missed her say’.
1868		S. Winner ‘Ten Little Injuns’ in Opie Oxford Dict. of Nursery Rhymes (1951) 328: Ten little Injuns standin’ in line / One toddled home and then there were nine.
1869		H.B. Stowe Oldtown Folks 191: Old Ketury could say the Lord’s prayer in Injun.
1873		J.H. Beadle Undeveloped West 620: In the slang of the mountains, the Navajoes are ‘my pet Injins’.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 20: Playing on the square with big ‘Injins’.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 227: It’s a plaguey sight safer than letting her carry it in her mind, and then laying for yer some day when ye haven’t nary thought of Injuns in your head.
1897		F.H. Carruth Voyage of the Rattletrap 14: They’ll all be scalped by Injuns.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 47: He didn’t say where the Injuns had found this wealth to cache.
1907		S.E. White Arizona Nights 8: Apaches are the worst Injins there is for tortures.
1910		‘Bill Peters’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 60: When Injuns hove in sight [...] he druv with all his might.
1916		H.L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap 340: That white man still have smallpox to give all Injins he travel to.
1929		‘Max Brand’ Rustlers of Beacon Creek (1935) 205: They’re Injuns. They ain’t white!
1930		E. Waugh Vile Bodies 198: ‘The Honest Injun,’ a workmens’ dining-room and a fried-fish shop.
1942		Whizzbang Comics 62: I’d have died all right, if an Injun hadn’t found me, stiff and frozen, an’ nursed me back to life.
1958		Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 235: This low, vulgar game of cowboys and injuns – beg pardon, indians.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 181: Smart Injun never tell paleface too much.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 59: Colombia’s wild west, by the time I get it checked out, them Injuns have me blown away.
1999		Observer Mag. 13 June 32: Not bad for a ‘redneck injun’ who turns 70 next month.