Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/332

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320
H. S. Lyman.

the final perfect expression of humanity in society, art, literature and religion.

After the above, which is perhaps too much in the way of introduction, I will proceed with the names that I have been favored with only wishing, if that were possible, that our aboriginal languages might be reconstructed in their entirety.

Water, says Mr. Smith, unless enclosed by land, was never named. The Columbia or the Willamette had no names. Water was to the native mind, like air, a spiritual element, and just the same in one place as another; and the circumstance that it was bounded by land made it no other than simply "chuck" the Jargon word. If Indians ever seemed to give a name to a river, all that was meant was some locality on the shore. The idea of giving an appellation to a body of water from source to outlet never occurred to them.

The following are some of the more common Indian names of places, as given by Mr. Smith:

Chinook, or Tsinook—The headland at Baker's Bay.

Clatsop, or, more properly, Tlahtsops—About the same as Point Adams at mouth of the Columbia.

Wal-lamt, accented on last syllable, and but two syllables—A place on the west shore of the Willamette River, near Oregon City, and the name from which Willamette is taken.

E-multh-a-no-mah—On east side of Sauvie's Island; from which the name Multnomah is derived.

Chemukata—Chemekata, site of Salem.

Chemayway—A point on the Willamette River about two and one-half miles southward from Fairfield, where Joseph Gervais, who came to Oregon with Wilson G. Hunt in 1811, settled in 1827-28. The name Chemawa, the Indian school, is derived from this.

Champoek—Champoeg, an Indian name signifying the place of a certain edible root. The name is not the French term le campment sable, as naturally supposed by some, and stated by Bancroft.

Ne-ay-lem—The name from which Nehalem is derived.

Acona—Yaquina.

To these might be added, perhaps, Sealth, the name of the Indian chief after whom the City of Seattle is