The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-08-25

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ferent ways. The tribe gave The
name currency among the early
| Spanish and French explorers and
| the river on which they lived tooS
the same name. During the first hall
| of the last century there was a steam
! boat landing and small village named
Kansas. The village grew n be-
came the City of Kansas n finally
Kansas City. For a time the village,
the river and the Indians monopol-
| lied the name Kansas, as no part OF
the country was so-called until the
Kansas-Nebraska bill came up in Con
gress.
The Kaw Indians, like the Mis-
| souris, had a beautiful and Significant
name for their river. For the 1ol-
| lowing bit of striking
! George P. Morehouse and w. E. Con-
nelley are authorities: 1.-THE Kansas
| Indian called the Kansas River Fan
heh-kah-so-jau (accent' on second
! and fourth, from pah-heh-kah, hill,
| and so-jah, smoky-literal transla-
ton, hills smoky, or hill smoky. The
free translation is smoky nil, ana
the Kansas Indians, therefore, called
the Kansas River the Smoky Hill
| River. This was their name for 1t
| from it's mouth to its head. Inc
present Smoky Hill River they re-
| garded as the main stream-the Re
publican. Solomon and Saline being
REGARDED as tributaries. The name
| o~riginated in the abundance of smoke
that gathered along the bluffs n
hills bordering the stream, and the
| fine mind of the Indian saw poetic
| beauty in these hills as softened by
| smoke and haze gathered over and
about them. The Indians burned the
grass on the prairies every autumn
and in those times the only timber TO
| be found was along the streams. Inc
! Kansas River had more timber tnan
the others as it was the largest, n
the trough of the stream filled with
| smoke blown from the prairies, and
it gathered along the wooded blufs,
which were the smoky hills from
which they rerived the name of the
stream"
The Kaws, the Osages, the Mis-
souris and the Omahas had long held
possession Of their respective regions
and they have all left great names
p%erpetuated in cities, rivers n
| States. The migrant tribes, those
brought West by the strong and re-
lentless arm of the Government, LETT
| great ame in their native places,
but in their new homes conferred
| fewer names which found acceptance
in the white mans nomenclature. In
many instances, where an Indian
name took hold of the white mans
fancy, repeated and prolonged et-
forts were made to prevent it's adop-
ton, but lice the scent Of the rose
| clinging to the vase, the immortal
Indian names persisted, at first being
but half recognized as great, prevail
ing in, the end by some secret charm
which appealed to u country's pion-
GERS. The tenacity with which all
| Indian names survived is worth our
| sincere admiration. When the pride
| and of the whites would
have suppressed and overruled the
| stately and august names which the
! Indians found to be so in harmony
with the universe, the voice and in
| spiration of nature came in and de-
creed them imperishable.
The Indian was a child Of nature.
He was also patriotic, passionately at
! tached to the land of his habitauon,
| but how could he in a strange land
find those happy, tuneful and noble
expressions which his poetic mind
was capable Of deriving from the
very heart of nature? The migrant
tribes nevertheless left many quaint,
expressive words which some future
Longfellow may weave into his story
and give US another Hiawatha.
The Wyandotte Indians gave par
ticular names to the sites of our two
Kansas Cities. The site of Kansas
| City, Kan, their W reservation,
was in their language Kyoo-de-zha-ri,
the land enclosed by the junction of
two streams, in this instance the
Missor ri and Kansas. The Wyan-
dotte name for the site of Kansas
City, Mo-, was Kyoo-ra-doo-hi, the
point where the rock juts out into
the water, so-called for the high,
rocky bluff at the west end of Fifth
street. They claim the water washed
the base Of this rock when they first
saw it. Turkey Greek emptied into
the Missouri River near this point
when the Wyandottes arrived in
1S43. The great flood of 1914 d.
verified Turkey Creek into the Kaw.
kansas City Times.