The Skuna River is a tributary of the Yalobusha River, about 75 mi (120 km) long, in north-central Mississippi in the United States. Via the Yalobusha and Yazoo Rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River.

Course

The Skuna River rises about 4 mi (6 km) west of Pontotoc in Pontotoc County and flows generally southwestwardly through Chickasaw and Calhoun Counties, past the town of Bruce. Most of the river's course has been channelized, and it is also known as the "Skuna River Canal." It joins the Yalobusha River 6 mi (9.7 km) east of Grenada, as the north arm of Grenada Lake, which is formed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dam on the Yalobusha. The Skuna has an average annual discharge of 620 cubic feet per second at Coffeeville, MS.

Name

Skuna is a name derived from the Choctaw language purported to mean "entrails, guts". The United States Board on Geographic Names settled on "Skuna River" as the stream's name on February 3, 1926. According to the Geographic Names Information System, it has also been known as: Henry S. Tanner's 1848 map of Mississippi has the waterway labeled "Lussascoona R." Thomas B. Ives's hand-drawn 1845 map of the waterways between the Mississippi River and Grenada, Mississippi has it labeled "Lussascona."

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