Spanish and Indian place names of California: Their Meaning and Their Romance

by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

Alta (high), is a village in Placer County, sixty-eight miles northeast of Sacramento, two miles from the great American Canyon. The altitude of this place is 3607 feet above sea level. The name is modern and was only given to the place after the building of the Central Pacific Railroad.

Cerro Gordo (large, thick hill), is the name of a famous mining camp in Inyo County.

Cisco is a town in Placer County, situated at an altitude of 5934 feet above sea level. Cisco is a word of disputed origin. It has been said to be derived from the Algonquin word cisco, meaning a fish, a sort of oily herring found in the Great Lakes, but it seems unlikely that such a name should be transported all the way from the Great Lakes to the Sierras, especially as no fish of that kind is to be found there. Other persons believe the word to be derived from the Spanish cisco (broken pieces of coal), but for this there appears to be no legitimate reason. In the History of Placer County the statement is made that the town was named for John J. Cisco, at one time connected with the United States Government, an explanation which is probably the true one.

Esmeralda (emerald), a village in Calaveras County.

Hetch Hetchy is the Indian name of a deep valley in the Sierra, lying north of the Yosemite, which will some day cease to be a valley and become a lake, as the people of San Francisco have succeeded in obtaining the permission of the United States Government to turn it into a reservoir for the city’s water supply. An explanation of the meaning of the word Hetch Hetchy has been obtained through the kindness of John Muir, who says: “I have been informed by mountaineers who know something of the Indian language that Hetch Hetchy is the name of a species of grass that the Tuolumne Indians used for food, and which grows on the meadow at the lower end of the valley. The grain, when ripe, was gathered and beaten out and pounded into meal in mortars.” The word was originally spelled Hatchatchie.

Lancha Plana (flat-boat), is in Amador County, and its story is thus told by Mr. Junius Farnsworth, an old resident of Stockton: “This town is located across the Mokelumne River from Poverty Bar, a name given to a gravel bar in the river which was exceedingly rich in placer gold, and to which thousands of early day miners were attracted. Those who came from the north side of the Mokelumne centered in Lancha Plana and reached Poverty Bar by means of a flat-boat, or flat ferry. The Spanish soon designated the settlement on the north bank of the river as Lancha Plana, as it was the point at which the flat-boat tied up.”

Moquelumne is the name of a river which rises in the high Sierra in Alpine County, flows southwesterly and empties into the San Joaquín. The word is a corruption of the Miwok Wakalumitoh, the Indian name of the river. The Moquelumne family was made up of an aggregation of tribes which occupied three sections, one lying between the Cosumnes and Fresno Rivers, another in Marin, Sonoma, and Napa Counties, and a third occupying a small area in the south end of Lake County. (A. L. Kroeber, in American Anthrop. VIII, no. 4, 1906.) The Miwoks constituted the great body of this family, the different branches of which were connected by a similarity of languages. The Miwoks are described as being quite low in the scale of civilization, and “it has been asserted that this tribe of Indians ate every variety of living creature indigenous to their territory except the skunk. The skins of jack-rabbits were rudely woven into robes, and they bought bows and arrows from the mountain Indians for shell money. Cremation of the dead was usual, and all possessions of the departed were burned with them. Their names were never afterward mentioned and those who bore the same names changed them for others. Widows covered their faces with pitch, and the younger women singed their hair short as a sign of widowhood.”—(Handbook of American Indians.) Muk-kel was the name of the principal village of this tribe, and if umne does in fact mean “people of”, Moquelumne may be “people of the village of Muk-kel.”

Panamint Range of mountains was named for the Panamint tribe, who belonged to the Shoshonean family, and lived around the Panamint Valley, in Inyo County, southeastern California. Many unfortunate seekers after gold have lost their lives in this desolate mountain range.

Pinto Range (painted or spotted range), so-called because of the variegated colors of the rocks. This range is in Inyo County.

San Andreas (St. Andrew), is the county-seat of Calaveras County, and is situated near the Calaveras River, fifty-six miles southeast of Sacramento. Placer gold mining was at one time extensively carried on here. St. Andrew, the patron saint of this place, was the brother of Simon Peter, and was the first called to be an apostle. He suffered martyrdom by being crucified, supposedly on a cross shaped like the one that bears his name. He is the patron of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and of the great Order of the Cross of St. Andrew.—(Stories of the Saints.) San Andreas is anomalous in being almost the only Spanish name in the mining district. The circumstances of its naming have not been ascertained.

Sonora, named for the province of Sonora in Mexico, is the capital of Tuolumne County, and is situated ninety miles southeast of Sacramento. It received its name from the large number of Sonorans from the Mexican province who mined there in the very early days. This is a mining period name and has no real connection with Spanish names.

Tenaya Peak in Yosemite Valley is named for Ten-ei-ya, chief of the Yosemite Indians.

Vallecito (little valley), is in Calaveras County, fifty-five miles northeast of Stockton.

Wawona, in Mariposa County, is said by some authorities to be a Moquelumnan word meaning “big tree,” but this definition is regarded by ethnologists with doubt.