Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-08-08

and having acquired horses from tn,
Mexicans the Shoshonis annual,
trekked back to the plains to hun
buffalo. This brought them in intimat
contact with the Sioux. To the Siou,
they told of this River of the West
which in the ShoshOnis LANGUAGE wa.
OgWa-pe-on, the river flowing into tn,
ocean toward the setting sun; Ogwa-
river, and pe-on-west; River of thu
West. The Sioux, not having the soun6
"gwa," changed it to RI. giving thu
pronunciation Oregon. At the peri
OF becoming tiresome permit me tx
carry the derivation a step farther:
In the word Ogwa, the syllable Or
means undulating, and is the base fol
river, snake, salmon; anything hav-
ing a Wavy motion. Pan means water
thus making the contracted sound Og-
Wa-undulating water.
Historically, 1 might add, the woro
next appeared, but not in print, ir
President Jefferson's instructions tc
MerrlWeather Lewis Of the Lewis anC
Clark expedition in June 1903, wherein
he couples the word with that OF
Columbia or Oregon. The discovery OF
he mouth Of the river and its explora-
ton had been made by Captain Gray
in 1898 naming it in honor of his boat,
Columbia.
POetical Use
Its second use in print however was
made by William Cullen Bryant in
That remarkably contemplative poem,
"ThanatopsiS":
"Or lose thyself in the continuous
woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no
sound,
Save his own dashings-yet the dead
are there"
"Thanatopsis" was written in 1872
but not published until 1917.
The Lewis and Clark Journal, first
published in 1914, called it the Great
Columbia valley, following the nomen-
clature of Gray in his account of the
discovery and ascent of the river.
Hale j. Kelly of Boston, evidently
familiar with Carver'S travels and i'm
bued with the idea of a great empire
on the northwest coast, was the third
to use the word Oregon, in 1881 APP
plying it to that section organized as
the territory of Oregon in 1848.
l have referred to the limited actual
knowledge the Indians had of the coun-
try outside his immediate hunting
grounds. His names for rivers and ex-
ceptional promontories were founded on
immediate circumstances. In Upham's
Minnesota Geography" he names quite
another Interpretation of Mississippi;
Water Of FatherS'-is suggested. The
ChippeWays knew that the Jesuit Fa-
theirs, Hennepin, La Sale and Mar
quette, had Travelled with boats up this
river SO that when asked by the French
their name for it replied Mee-she-see-
pee. tMee-she- Father and See-pee
water Of Father'S), referring to the
Jesuit Fathers and not to the unknown
physical condition of the stream.
Idaho Origin
The origin of the word Idaho, it too
being a ShoshOniS word, in its full deri-
vation is most interesting to the his
torian and philologist: "El-dah-how"
the SUI incoming down the mountain.
Ee, the basis of the Shoshoni words
for raining, showing, anything coming
down, Dab, a root for both sun and
mountain, something eternal; How, an
have: "The sun coming down the
mountain" The Shoshonis, as stated,
occupied originally the eastern base of
the Rockies from Mexico to the land
Of the Flatheads. When the stampede
was on to Pixies Peak in 1858, the
prospectorS found the Shoshonis along
upper waters Of the Arkansas and
The Indian name for morning be-
came familiar to them, SO that the first
there in 1859 was named
Idaho Springs, their pronunciation of
E~e-dah-how. When the territory was
organized in 1861 Idaho was the pro-
posed name, but through Henry Wilson,
then senator from Massachusetts,, it
was christened Colorado. The first set
Element of the territory which after
wards became Idaho began with the
itch placer discoveries at Pierce City
1860. The spring of 1863 the bill
organizing this new territory from
Washington as it passed the house car
led the name Montana. When it went
to the senate, Senator Wilson, no
doubt realizing his error in the name
If Colorado as not applicable to the
Shining Mountain Territories" struck
out the word Montana and inserted
Idaho for the territory now embraced
Idaho, western Montana and Wyo-
ming.
The philosophy of Oregon, with it's
sister Shoshonis idaho" and the thread
If history surrounding their origin,
nay prove both interesting and instruc-
i've to any reader Of this summary
rom Carver, Lee, Elliott and particu-
arly Rees, who may have had the
or may in the near future
the grandeur of the Columbia
overlooking the River Of the
West.