As to the pronunciation of the word, it is said that the Indians called it Tu-ah-lúm-ne, rather than Tuólumne, which is the general usage.
MARIPOSA
Mariposa (butterfly), is famous as the county that holds within its borders two of the wonders of the earth, the Yosemite Valley and the Giant Sequoias. Some of these trees are three hundred feet high, thirty feet in diameter, and 2400 years old, having unfolded their feathery fronds before Christ came upon the earth. According to Professor Jepsen, “they are the direct descendants of the species dominant in the Tertiary Period,” and thus are a living reminder of the plant life of that dim and distant past of which the animal life is pictured for us in the fossil remains of the mammoth and saber-tooth tiger of the La Brea asphalt beds.
MARIPOSA SEQUOIAS.
“ ... some of these unfolded their feathery fronds before Christ came upon the earth.”
Nearly every writer who has attempted to account for the name Mariposa has fallen into the error of ascribing it to the charming little flower called the Mariposa lily. Fremont, with his intense appreciation of the beauty of the wild flowers covering the whole country with a carpet of many hues at the time of his passage over the Sierra, says: “On some of the higher ridges were fields of a poppy which, fluttering and tremulous on its long thin stalk, suggests the idea of a butterfly settling on a flower, and gives to this flower its name of Mariposa (butterflies), and the flower extends its name to the stream.” It is almost a pity to demolish such a pretty story, yet it is unavoidable, for the true explanation is at hand in the diary of Padre Muñoz, who accompanied the Gabriel Moraga expedition of 1806 into the Sierra. He says: “This spot [not far from the Merced river], was called Las Mariposas (the butterflies), on account of their great multitude, especially at night and in the morning, so much so that they became excessively annoying, carrying their desire to hide from the rays of the sun so far that they followed us everywhere, and one even entered into the ear of one of the leaders of the expedition, causing him a great deal of annoyance, and not a little trouble in getting it out.” This story is corroborated by the fact that at the present day equally great numbers of butterflies, equally annoying, swarm through the mountain forests during a certain part of the autumn.