Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-09-23
NOMENCLATURE.

you know that all the men employed by
us in taking care of and herding cattle
always ride bucking horses, and the
hair from the cattle and horses stick to
their clothes, and SO the men are called
buckhairers."
His derivation was ingenious, but the
true word is vaquero Vaca, meaning
cow, and vaquero, one who herds or
tends COWS or cattle; a cowherd.
There is on the road to San Francisco,
beyond San Jose, a large tract of land
which was granted by the Spanish gov
eminent, by the name of Las Pulgas,
commonly called the .Pulgas Rancho"
and is, when translated, the place of
ileas.
Such a name leads lis to consider the
torments that the sponsors of that place
must have suffered to induce them to
give the name OF flea to their property.
What mutterings, twistings and turn
ings, slappings and witches. itchings
and rubbings, until finally the invader
is spied beneath the fold of garment
The victim, With cautiously poised finger
and thumb. prepares to capture him;
slowly and carefully he begins the as
sault with a determination nothing can
check. There! He is caught! He is
exultingly felt between the thumb and
finger, and the grip tightens as he is
felt The hunter straightens himself,
and for moment enjoys the pleasing
triumph and then prepares to destroy
the insect, to immediate him on the
horns of his wrath, as it were He re-
leases the pinching power of thumb and
finger to take peep, to enjoy his tri-
umph still more The insect is not visi-
BILE yet. He releases little more; still
more and more; he opens his fingers
wide The fea is not there-he has
fled. Fled as flea fleeth
The Spanish word for thumb is pull
gar, from whence comes pulga or flea.
The connection between them is easily
understood. and in a double sense by
those who have endeayored by the use
OF the thumb and its adjunct to catch
the tormenting insect.
1t appears to be impossible to arrive
at the meaning OF the Indian names
that have been retained. In this coun-
try there are three noted grants of land
that were made under Indian names.
Zayante now called Sayante, is one of
them, and of which the village of Fell
ton now forms part.
Sequel is another. also having a vii
lage called by the same name, and
Autos, now altered to Aptos, is the third
The writer is still prosecuting search for
the origin and meaning of these names.
In an official order of the governor of
California, made eighty years ago, So
nuat - allsr1ad 20. a.1l
years before the land was granted.
We will now step outside of Califor-
mia, and as depression will mention
that about the year 1910 there was
much commercial disaster IN and about
the state of New York and city.
The newspapers of the day were filled
with notices of bankruptcy. Well-known
merchants closed their places of bust
ness and disappeared from view Wall
street and the exchange knew them no
more. This became SO frequent that
one day some wag chalked or painted
upon the door of a well-known COM
mereial house that had been closed and
the occupant Of which had absented
himself, the letters &c. T. tn
This occasi0ned more surprise; until
the New York Herald in one of its issues
explained that &c. T. t. meant gone
to Texas. Soon it became a byword
that when merchant met with pecu-
mary misfortune he had G. L. T., gone
to Texas; and Texas became the Mecca
of the unfortunate, the depressed, and
the adyenturer. At the commencement
OF the war with Mexico, Texas acquired
great not0riety. and then came the in
! quiry: Whence its namep What does
Texas mean2 Nobody knew, and many
were the suppositious replies.
Yet it is easily and simply explained.
1t is Spanish descriptive word mean
ing tiles, such as houses are rooted with
in some countries instead of shingles.
In modern etymology it is spelled TEXAS
and pronounced Tehas
Its origin is as follows: The mission
aries of the Catholic church. after the
conquest Of Mexico, then called New
Spain, penetrated the wilds of America
from the Atlantic side, and when ex-
ploring that part now known as Texas,
IN search of Indian converts, discovered
| upon the banks of the Rio Grande.
which they had partially assembled, a
village of Indians, who, TO their sur
prise, lived III houses or huts with tiled
roofs (Which was an evidence of some
civilization and they gave the name
Tiles or Texas to very large tract of
country separated from Mexico by the
Rio Grande or Big river.
AT this time the missionaries were
also exploring the country north of the
Sonora by the way of the Gulf of Lower
California and the Colorado river from
Mexico. They arrived at part where
they encountered many Indians who
were remarkable for having very large
and flattened noses, and the soldiers
forming the escort called that part OF
the country Narizona or Big Noses.
Since then the name Narizona has
been abridged somewhat by dropping
the letter N, and we have Arizona, be-
coming every day more generally known
by reason of its reputed great mineral
wealth.
Some writer has given the origin of
the word as being derived from "Arid
Zone" but the above is the true origin.
Narizona, Big Nose, less the letter N.
leaving it Arizona.
The Gulf of California, lying between
the peninsula of Lower California and
the coast of Sonora, was formerly called
and named in early Spanish maps the
Mar Roxe, or Red sea. One must SUM-
pose that it was so named because of its
water being tinged with red. In this
supposition he would be mistaken, for
it was called Red sea by its Spanish dis
coverers, because of its resemblance in
conformation to the Red sea of Europe
or Gulf of Arabia, which runs from
Suez between the coasts of Africa and
Asia.
The earliest navigators of the coast
of California. when sailing north OF
California, made q landing and had
friendly intercourse with a tribe of In.
dams they found there. who had very
long, pendulous ears, formed SO from
the habit they had of Sitting the lobes
and using them as receptacle in which
they carried their ornaments. such as
earrings on very large scale.
The sailors called these Indians the
Orejones, or Big Ears, and in time the
name was curtailed to Oreion, or Big
Ear. Anglicize the word Orejon and
you have our Oregon, and such is the
origin of the name of the state of Ore
gon.
To the understanding of one of the
Spanish race, it is nothing more or less
than orejon, or big ear, it being a true
Spanish word indicating and meaning
a large ear.
Perhaps the ladies of the state of Ore
gon who wear earrings may not wish to
know they are initiating, in a small
way, the savage tribes that occupied the
country hundreds of years before them.
-S1ufn Cruz Sentinel