INDIAN NAMES.
Indian names and Indian words in general of the tribes of the region of the Columbia have many peculiarities, and amply repay time spent in trying to study them out. The following pretends to be only the merest beginning, and the writer has advanced only to the edges of the subject. It comprises only those names, and those meagerly and superficially, of the Lower Columbia and Willamette rivers, and these have been obtained from but two or three original sources. Those sources, however, are as reliable and intelligent as are to be found, being the recollections of Silas B. Smith, of Clatsop, and Louis Labonte, of Saint Paul, Oregon. That others may present anything they may have on the subject, and thus the stock of information be increased before those who have the original information shall have passed away, and the later investigators be left only to conjecture, is my idea in preparing this paper.
In the first place we must bear in mind a remark of Mr. Smith’s, and that is that the most of the Indian names we have incorporated into our own nomenclature are more or less altered. He says that white men always like to change the original Indian somewhat. This is no doubt true. Such a disposition arises partly from the white man’s egotism, which rejoices in showing that he can make a thing wrong if he pleases, and especially that an Indian name has no rights which he is bound to respect; and it arises in part from the white man’s ignorance. This ignorance is shown partly in the lack of training of our ears in hearing, so that we frequently are unable to distinguish between allied letters, or sounds, such as “p” and “b,” or “m,” for the consonants, or between a simple vowel sound, or a compound, or diphthong. Moreover, our English language is almost hopelessly mixed up between the open, or broad continental pronunciation of the vowels, and the narrow, or closed sound; so that no one is sure that an “a” stands for “ay,” as in “day,” or for “ah,” as in “hurrah.” The Yankee peculiarity, also, of leaving off the sound of “r” where it belongs, and putting it on where it does not belong, like saying “wo’k” for “work,” or “Mariar” for “Mariah,” has very materially changed the original pronunciation. With us, too, the pronunciation of the vowels follows a fashion, and varies from time to time according to what particular “phobia” or “mania” we may happen to be cultivating. At present the prevailing Anglomania is probably affecting our speech as well as our fashions and politics. An Indian name, therefore, that might have been rendered into very good English fifty years ago, may now, having become subject to the mutations of our fads of pronunciation, be spoken quite differently from the original tongue.
But, after making all these allowances, due to our white man’s egotism, ignorance and change of fashions, the main difficulty is in the strangeness, and, it might be said, the rudimentariness of the Indian sounds. Many, perhaps the most, of the aboriginal tones have no exact phonetic equivalent in English. We must remember that their names were originated away back in their own history, and were not affected by contact with Europeans, and have therefore a primitive quality not found even in the Jargon. This makes them more difficult, but certainly not less interesting.
In general it will be found, I think, that the aboriginal languages have the following peculiarities of pronunciation:
1. Almost all the sounds are pronounced farther back in the throat than we pronounce them. This brings into use an almost entirely different set of tones, or more exactly, it brings the various vocal sounds produced by the vocal chords to a point at a different, and to us an unused position of the throat or mouth—at a point where we can scarcely catch and arrest the sound. This makes the vowel sounds in general pectoral or ventral, and the consonant sounds guttural or palatal. As to the consonants, also, it often gives them a clucking or rasping sound not found in our language, unless in certain exclamations.
2. As a consequence of the above, the vowel sounds are not very fully distinguished from the subvowels. There is no “r” sound; if that is ever seen in an Indian name it has been interpolated there by some white mal-transliterator. “L” easily runs into “a,” and “m” into “b.” Names that upon first pronunciation seem to have an “l” turn out upon clearer sound to have a short Italian “a,” or those having an “m” to be more exactly represented by “b.” Probably the fact as to “r” is that it is identical in the aboriginal throat with long Italian “a,” or the ah sound, as it still is with Easterners and Southerners.
3. Many of the most common aboriginal consonants, or atonic sounds, while simple to them, can be represented in English only by compounds. Such are the almost universal “ch” which can be as accurately rendered “ts,” (?) and the very common final syllable “lth.” “T” is also produced so far back in the throat as to be almost indistinguishable from “k.” It seems to be a principle to slip a short “e” sound before an initial “k,” and many names begin with a short introductory “n” sound, which is nearly a pure vowel. Of the vowels, “a” pronounced as ah is the most common, though long “a,” properly a diphthong, and long “i” a diphthong, and long “e” are very frequent. While it is true that the sounds as a rule are in, rather than out, still the pure vowels, especially “a,” and this used as a call, or cry, is often very open and pure.
4. It will probably be found, also, that the sounds are varied more or less according to meaning. With us tones are a matter of expression. With the aborigines they were probably a matter primarily of meaning. This would arise from the fact that their language was not written, but spoken, and their terms were not descriptive, but imitative. We know, for instance, that the Jargon word indicating pastime, which is “ahncuttie,” means a shorter or longer period, according as the length the first vowel is drawn out—a very long time ago admitting also of imitative gesticulation. This principle would modify the pronunciation of words, lengthening or shortening the vowels, or opening or closing them, or perhaps drawing semi-vowels out into pure vowels, and softening or sharpening the consonants.
While any expression of opinion must be very modest, still this much may be ventured: That our language has lost many valuable elements in its evolution from the spoken to the written form, especially in the matter of picturesqueness. We have, of course, gained immeasurably in directness and objective accuracy, but true evolution does not abolish any former element, but retains and subordinates it, and thereby is able to advance to new utilities. By study of a pure aboriginal language on the imitative principle, expressed only in tones, not only may the advantages of our own tongue be understood, but its deficiencies may be remedied, and a more complete language at length be developed. I am by no means of the opinion that all that is human, or of value to civilization, is to be found in the Anglo-Saxon race, or even in the white race; but that the slow and painful struggles and ponderings of the other races are also to be wrought into the final perfect expression of humanity in society, art, literature and religion.
After the above, which is perhaps too much in the way of introduction, I will proceed with the names that I have been favored with—only wishing, if that were possible, that our aboriginal languages might be reconstructed in their entirety.
Water, says Mr. Smith, unless enclosed by land, was never named. The Columbia or the Willamette had no names. Water was to the native mind, like air, a spiritual element, and just the same in one place as another; and the circumstance that it was bounded by land made it no other than simply “chuck”—the Jargon word. If Indians ever seemed to give a name to a river, all that was meant was some locality on the shore. The idea of giving an appellation to a body of water from source to outlet never occurred to them.
The following are some of the more common Indian names of places, as given by Mr. Smith:
Chinook, or Tsinook—The headland at Baker’s Bay.
Clatsop, or, more properly, Tlahtsops—About the same as Point Adams at mouth of the Columbia.
Wal-lamt, accented on last syllable, and but two syllables—A place on the west shore of the Willamette River, near Oregon City, and the name from which Willamette is taken.
E-multh-a-no-mah—On east side of Sauvie’s Island; from which the name Multnomah is derived.
Chemukata—Chemekata, site of Salem.
Chemayway—A point on the Willamette River about two and one-half miles southward from Fairfield, where Joseph Gervais, who came to Oregon with Wilson G. Hunt in 1811, settled in 1827-28. The name Chemawa, the Indian school, is derived from this.
Champoek—Champoeg, an Indian name signifying the place of a certain edible root. The name is not the French term le campment sable, as naturally supposed by some, and stated by Bancroft.
Ne-ay-lem—The name from which Nehalem is derived.
Acona—Yaquina.
To these might be added, perhaps, Sealth, the name of the Indian chief after whom the City of Seattle is called. The name is of two syllables, accented on the first. This well illustrates the tendency of the whites to transpose letters, here making an “lth” into a “tle” in imitation of the French, or, perhaps, the Mexican names. Bancroft learnedly discusses the similarity between the Washington and Mexican “tl,” apparently not knowing that the Washington termination was not “tl,” but “lth.”
I will now give, in more detail, names of places, chiefs, and of some primitive articles of food, and utensils, etc.: