The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1906-05-06
II TRANSLATION
OF INDIAN NAMES
Difficult Task Of a Commission Appointed by the Gov
ernment-Every Indian Name Meant Something
s... Not So with the English Substitutes.
commission appointed by the
government to translate into

~HE commission appointed by the
government to translate into
~ concise, correct English all In
dian names found in the geography of
the. United States, has on its hands a
Job of great magnitude, as may be com
pretended when it is considered that
more than 5000 names,: now fixed to
various points between Maine and Cali
fornia and the Canadian line and the
Rio, Grande, commemorate the fact that
the red man once was sole possessor, of
the land. The names Of his chiefs and
of his tribes are forever fixed IN mem
Dry. Indian traditions are 'perpetuated
and musical Indian words. have been in
corporated into our tongue, a legacy of
poetry and romance evensin this prac-
teal age. 49,;
Every name the Indian gave meant
| something. He left to his pale-faced
| brother the absurdities Of preixing to
I2,7OO towns and settlements the stale
descriptive terms, east, west, north,
south; he left to the, white man the con-
fusion of thirty-three Springfelds in
one union, not a fifth of which were
ever built in a field or by a spring; Of
Pinevilles without "a pine, %Oakdales
without an oak, Weymouths and Ply
mouths that are not at the mouth of
the Wey, the Plym, or any other river;
of Mount Vernons twenty-five strong,
many Of them without even a. hill to
their credit, and Of 1,l00 New Havens,
New Yorks, Newtowns and New-every-
thing-else, all Of which have long since
ceased to be new.
Indian Names Mean Something.
Not so with the Indian. He pitched
his wigwam beside the stream. Thru
the curling waters the long, dark stones
on the rivers bed locked like etters at
play, and forthwith the camping place
received the name it bearsRtoday-Kaf
amazoo-ts tones-1ike-otters' I'll the In
dian tongue. Again, he saw on a river
bank a pine tree wreathed in Shames:
for hours it. threw its torch-1ike glare
over the landscape, as would have
beamed the glow Of some. council fire
fed by attendant warriors, and Potomac
that region became a literal translation
of which is "the place Of the burning
pine, that resembles. a council fire.
Poughkeepsie is "a safe harbor TO
small boats'';4 Norridgewock, "th'
place Of DEER; Ontario, "the village
on the mountain'; Saranac, "the riv
er that flows under rock,' and Sara
y toga, >Hthex place of the miraouleu
waters in a rock
Similarly, Schenectady is "'the rive
>. valley beyond the pine trees'; Schc
. harie is s'the tributary that throws it
+ waters strong over. and across the mai
. stream,'; the Wabash is ga cloud. blow
forward by an ~equinoctial wind''; No
nongahela is "the~ falling-in-bank riv
e err; Rappahannock, "the river o
n ouick-rising water" and Toronto, "oa
e trees rising from the lake, Sue
a words show a .wondrous skill in the al
y Of word painting, and their expressly
~ Indian tongue reflects their impression
with a vivid minuteness impossible t
more cumbersome English. *.t1 Tiff
r. His Terms Picturesque.
/ There is no commonplace in India
names. All Of the Indians terms al
picturesque, because alive and ful {
meaning to him. A thousand example
could be given. Once, before. the whit
70 mans day, a c~aving-in1 of a river ban
a. revealed the huge fossil tusk of son
q prehistoric monster. At once the riv,
received the name Chemung, "B
il Horn" and generations of squaws to
le to generations Of: papooses thes} trad
lions Of the big bones and wide jay
a. that once had been found there
g 1875 a portion of Maine was visited !
most devastating. fire. The India
10 at once gave the region the name
/ ISchoodic, the 1sgreatsburnt lands, pc
netuatinp forever the memory of &