In his vocabulary of the Winatsha (Wenatchee) language, Gibbs entered: "T'koma, snow peak." In that of the Niswalli (Nisqually), he noted: "Takob, the name of Mt. Rainier." "T'kope," Chinook for white, is evidently closely allied. Gibbs himself tells us that the Northwestern dialects treated b and m as convertible. "Takob" is equivalent to "Takom" or "T'koma." Far, then, from coining the word, Winthrop did not even change its Indian form, as some have supposed, by modifying the mouth-filling "Tahoma" of the Yakimas into the simpler, stronger and more musical "Tacoma." This is as pure Indian as the other, and Winthrop's popularization of the word was a public service, as perpetuating one of the most significant of our Indian place-names.
Ice pinnacles on the Carbon.
I have said thus much, not to revive a musty and, to me, very amusing quarrel, but because correspondents in different parts of the country have asked regarding facts that are naturally part of the history of the Mountain. Some would even have me stir the embers of that ancient controversy. For instance, here is the Bulletin of the Geographical Society of Philadelphia taking me to task:
This book would also do a great service if it would help popularize the name "Tacoma" in spite of the Mountain's official designation "Rainier"—a name to which it has no right when its old Indian name is at once so beautiful and appropriate. It is to be regretted that a more vigorous protest has not been made against the modern name, and also against such propositions as that of changing "Narada Falls" to "Cushman Falls."
The mistaken attempt to displace the name of Narada Falls was still-born from the start, and needed no help to kill it. There are many unnamed landmarks in the National Park ready to commemorate Mr. Cushman's ambition to make the Mountain a real possession of all the people. As to the other matter—the name of the peak itself,—that may safely be left to the American sense of humor. But what I have said is due in justice to Winthrop, one of the finest figures in our literary history. His work in making the peak known demands that his name, given by local gratitude to one of its important glaciers, shall not be removed.
Among the ice bridges of the Carbon.