Chapter V: Part 5

_Ukiah_ is the county-seat of Mendocino County, and is on the Russian River, 110 miles northwest of San Francisco. “The word is said to be derived from the Indian _yokaia_, _yo_ (south), and _ka-ia_ (valley), the name of a village about six miles southeast of the present town of Ukiah.”

XI

THE CENTRAL VALLEY

TEHAMA COUNTY

_Tehama County_ lies at the extreme northern end of the great Central Valley of the state. There is a village of the same name in the county, on the Sacramento River, twelve miles southeast of Red Bluff.

The name _Tehama_ was derived from an Indian tribe, but the meaning of it has not been ascertained. Two definitions have been offered,—“high water,” in reference to the overflowing of the Sacramento River, and “low land,” but these may be among those attempts to account for our names by making the name fit the circumstances, a method which has resulted in many errors. All that can be positively stated is that the word is of Indian origin.

COLUSA

_Colusa_ is a county in the northern part of the Central Valley, and has a county-seat of the same name, situated on the west bank of the Sacramento River, sixty-five miles northwest of Sacramento.

This name appears as _Colus_ on the land grant located at that place, and is said by Powers, in his _Tribes of California_, to be a corruption of _Ko-ru-si_, a tribal name, a more reasonable explanation than any other that has been offered. General Will Green, said to have known the tribe well, was of the opinion that Colusa meant “the scratchers,” in allusion to a strange custom among these people of scratching one another’s faces. While it is true that the prevalence of this custom is mentioned by the Spaniards, Captain Fages referring to it in terms of great distaste, there is no scientific corroboration of that definition for the word _Colusa_.

YUBA

_Yuba_ is the name of a county in the Central Valley, of Yuba City, the county-seat of Sutter County, and of the Yuba River, which is formed by the union of three branches rising in the Sierra Nevada.

The name _Yuba_ was first applied to the river, the chief tributary of the Feather. The theory has been advanced that it received the name of _Uba_, or _Uva_, the Spanish word for grapes, from an exploring party in 1824, in reference to the immense quantities of vines loaded with wild grapes growing along its banks, _Uba_, becoming corrupted into _Yuba_, but Powers, in his _Tribes of California_, says Yuba is derived from a tribe of Maidu Indians named _Yu-ba_, who lived on the Feather River. This is probably the true explanation of the name. It is to be noted that Fremont, in his _Memoirs_, speaks of it as Indian: “We traveled across the valley plain, and in about sixteen miles reached Feather River, at twenty miles from its junction with the Sacramento, near the mouth of the Yuba, so-called from a village of Indians who live on it. The Indians aided us across the river with canoes and small rafts. Extending along the bank in front of the village was a range of wicker cribs, about twelve feet high, partly filled with what is there the Indians’ staff of life, acorns. A collection of huts, shaped like bee-hives, with naked Indians sunning themselves on the tops, and these acorn cribs, are the prominent objects in an Indian village.”

YOLO

_Yolo_ is the name of a county in the northern part of the Central Valley, and of a village near Woodland.

_Yolo_, or _Yoloy_, was the name of a Patwin tribe, and the word is said by the Bureau of Ethnology to mean “a place abounding with rushes.”

In 1884 there were still forty-five of the tribe living in Yolo County.

SOLANO

This county, situated in the Central Valley, immediately northeast of San Francisco, was named, at the request of General Mariano Vallejo, in honor of an Indian chief of the Suisunes who had aided him in war against the other natives. The name of this chief in his own tongue is said to have been _Sem Yeto_, “the Fierce one of the Brave Hand,” or _Sum-yet-ho_, “the Mighty Arm,” and, judging by the description given of him by Dr. Vallejo, he must have been a living refutation of the common belief that the California Indians were invariably squat and ill-formed, for he was a splendid figure of a man, six feet, seven inches in height and large in proportion. He was converted to Christianity and received the name of the celebrated missionary, Francisco Solano, as well as a grant of land containing 17752 acres, known as the Suisún Grant.

SUISÚN

_Suisún Bay_ is a body of navigable water connected with San Pablo Bay by the Carquínez Strait, and is the outlet of the San Joaquín and Sacramento Rivers. Suisún City is in Solano County, on a slough, about fifty miles northeast of San Francisco. Suisún was the name of an Indian village on that bay, and the word is said by some persons to mean a “big expanse.” The name was probably first given to the land grant.

This region was the home of an important tribe of Indians who had an interesting and tragic history. Their religious capital, if such it could be called, was at Napa, near which place there was a certain stone from which they believed one of their gods had ascended into upper air, leaving the impress of his foot upon the stone. General Vallejo says that in 1817 a military expedition under command of Lieutenant José Sánchez crossed the straits of Carquínez on rafts, for the double purpose of exploring the country and reducing it to Christianity. “On crossing the river they were attacked by the Suisún tribe, headed by their chief Malaca, and the Spaniards suffered considerable loss; the Indians fought bravely, but were forced to retire to their _ranchería_, where, being hotly pursued, and believing their fate sealed, these unfortunate people, incited by their chief, set fire to their own rush-built huts, and perished in the flames with their families. The soldiers endeavored to stay their desperate resolution, in order to save the women and children, but they preferred this doom to that which they believed to await them at the hands of their enemies.” The Suisún tribe is now entirely extinct, a large number having been carried off by a frightful epidemic of smallpox. Dr. Vallejo states that this tribe, a people described by him as possessing many attractive qualities, was estimated by his father to number at least 40,000 persons in 1835. After the great epidemic, which was brought down by the Russians from the north, and which lasted during the three consecutive years of 1837-38-39, there were barely two hundred left. Thus the disappearance of the California Indians was occasioned, not by the white man’s bullets or fire-water, nor even by the deteriorating influence of a changed mode of living, nor by the loss of native sturdiness through an acquired dependence upon the church, but suddenly and fearfully by the introduction of the hideous diseases of civilization.

SACRAMENTO

_Sacramento County_ and the city of the same name, the state capital, situated near the center of the Great Valley, received their names from the river, which, following the usual custom of the Spaniards, was christened first, being named in honor of the Holy Sacrament.

Captain Moraga first gave the name of _Jesús María_ to the main river, calling the branch _Sacramento_, but later the main stream became known as _Sacramento_, and the branch as _El Río de las Plumas_ (the river of the feathers).

COSUMNE

_Cosumne_ is the name of a village in Sacramento County, about twenty-two miles southeast of Sacramento. The Cosumne river rises in El Dorado County, near the Sierra Nevada, and enters the Mokelumne about twenty-five miles south of the city of Sacramento.

_Cosumne_ is an Indian word, said to mean “salmon,” and was taken from the tribe who lived upon the river. The frequent occurrence of the ending _amni_, or _umne_, in the names of rivers in the Sierras has led to the mistaken conclusion that the suffix actually means “river,” but we have the statement of A. L. Kroeber, Professor of Anthropology in the University of California, that, “The supposition may be hazarded that the ending _amni_, or _umne_, is originally a Miwok ending, with the meaning ‘people of’.” Thus the meaning of Cosumne may be “people of the village of Coso,” and of Mokelumne, “people of the village of Mukkel,” and so on through all the names having this ending.

Powers, in his _Tribes of California_, says _Kos-sum-mi_ was the Indian word for “salmon,” and that this is the probable origin of the name Cosumne.

The Bureau of Ethnology has an interesting paragraph on the manners and customs of these Indians: “They went almost naked; their houses were of bark, sometimes thatched with grass, and covered with earth; the bark was loosened from the trees by repeated blows with stone hatchets, the latter having the head fastened to the handle with deer sinews. Their ordinary weapons were bows and stone-tipped arrows. The women made finely-woven conical baskets of grass, the smaller ones of which held water. Their amusements were chiefly dancing and foot-ball; the dances, however, were in some degree ceremonial. Their principal deity was the sun, and the women had a ceremony which resembled the ‘sun dance’ of the tribes of the upper Missouri. Their dead were buried in graves in the earth. The tribe is now practically extinct.”—(quoted from Rice, in _American Anthropology_, III, 259, 1890.)

SAN JOAQUÍN

_San Joaquín County_, famous for its vast fields of wheat, is a part of the great Central Valley, and the river of the same name rises in the Sierras, flows north-northwest through the valley and unites with the Sacramento River near its mouth.

The river was named in honor of St. Joachim, the father of the Virgin. Lieutenant Moraga first gave the name to a rivulet which springs from the Sierra Nevada, and empties into Lake Buena Vista. The river derived its name from this rivulet.

The rich valley of the San Joaquín, two hundred miles long and thirty miles wide, with its wide, treeless expanses where the wild grasses grew rankly, was once a paradise for game. Fremont says: “Descending the valley we traveled among multitudinous herds of elk, antelope, and wild horses. Several of the latter which we killed for food were found to be very fat.” Herds of wild horses still range in California and Nevada, and are sometimes captured for sale, fine specimens bringing high prices.

STANISLAUS

_Stanislaus_ is the name of the county just south of San Joaquín, and of one of the tributaries of the San Joaquín River.

The word _Stanislaus_ is said to be derived from an Indian chief of that region, who became Christianized and was baptized under the Spanish name of _Estanislao_. He was educated at Mission San José, but became a renegade, and incited his tribe against the Spaniards. In 1826 he was defeated in a fierce battle on the banks of the river now bearing his name.

Fremont thus describes the scenery along the Stanislaus: “Issuing from the woods, we rode about sixteen miles over open prairie partly covered with bunch grass, the timber re-appearing on the rolling hills of the River Stanislaus, in the usual belt of evergreen oaks. The level valley was about forty feet below the upland, and the stream seventy yards broad, with the usual fertile bottom land which was covered with green grass among large oaks. We encamped in one of these bottoms, in a grove of the large white oaks previously mentioned.”

MERCED

_Merced_ (mercy), is the name of the county south of Stanislaus, of its own principal stream, and of its county-seat. The river was named by the Spaniards, in honor of the Virgin, _El Río de Nuestra Señora de la Merced_ (the river of our Lady of Mercy). This name was given to the stream by the Moraga party as an expression of their joy and gratitude at the sight of its sparkling waters, after an exhausting journey of forty miles through a water-less country.

According to Fremont, this stream was called _Auxumne_ by the Indians: “In about seventeen miles we reached the Auxumne River, called by the Mexicans _Merced_.... We encamped on the southern side of the river, where broken hills made a steep bluff, with a narrow bottom. On the northern side was a low undulating wood and prairie land, over which a band of about three hundred elk was slowly coming to water, feeding as they approached.”

The Merced River is notable in that it flows along the floor of the Yosemite Valley. Like all the other streams that have their rise in the Sierras, its character in its upper and lower reaches is vastly dissimilar. In the days of its turbulent youth it is a wild and boisterous stream, and in the voice of its hissing, roaring waters the wayfarer hears no sound of “mercy,” but after it makes its tremendous plunge down the western slope of the Sierras, and debouches upon the floor of the valley, it takes on a serene air of maturity, and widens into a placid river, its current flowing sluggishly between low, level banks.

MADERA COUNTY

_Madera_ (wood, timber), is the name of the county to the southwest of Stanislaus. It occupies a stretch of fertile land, and was called _Madera_ by the Spaniards on account of its heavy growth of timber.

FRESNO COUNTY

_Fresno_ (ash-tree), so-called in reference to the abundance of those trees in that region, is the name of a county in the San Joaquín Valley, in the heart of the grain and fruit country. Raisins and wine are its especial products. Its capital city and principal stream also bear the name of Fresno.

KINGS COUNTY

This county, now appearing under its English form, originally received its name from the river, which was discovered by a Spanish exploring party in 1805, and called by them _El Río de los Santos Reyes_ (the river of the Holy Kings), in honor of the “three wise men.”

A considerable part of the area of this county was at one time covered by Tulare Lake, but the shrinkage of that body of water through the withdrawal of its sources of supply have added nearly the whole of the territory occupied by its waters to the arable land of the county. This subject is further discussed under the head of Tulare.

“ ... named in honor of the three wise men.”]

The river seems to have been known at one time as the _Lake Fork_, by which name Fremont mentions it in the following paragraph: “We crossed an open plain still in a southeasterly direction, reaching in about twenty miles the Tulare Lake river. This is the Lake Fork, one of the largest and handsomest streams in the valley, being about one hundred yards broad, and having perhaps a larger body of fertile lands than any of the others. It is called by the Mexicans _El Río de los Reyes_. The broad alluvial bottoms were well wooded with several species of oaks. This is the principal affluent of the Tulare Lake, a strip of water which receives all the rivers in the upper or southern end of the valley.”

TULARE COUNTY

_Tulare_ (place of tules, or rushes), is the name of a county in the south-central part of the state, of Tulare Lake in Kings County, and of a town in the San Joaquín Valley. The county is remarkable for the high mountain peaks of the Sierra Nevada, on its northeast border. Among these is Mount Whitney, about 14500 feet in height.

_Tulare Lake_, in Kings County, at one time filled a shallow depression about thirty miles in length, and received through a number of small streams the drainage from the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, soon losing the greater part of this water by evaporation. It is now practically dry, as a result of the withdrawal for irrigation purposes of Kings and Kern Rivers, and the territory formerly covered by it has been to a great extent placed under cultivation. The lake was discovered in 1773 by Commandant Fages, while hunting for deserters from the presidio at Monterey, and called by him _Los Tules_ (the rushes), from the great number of those plants with which it was filled. In 1813 Captain Moraga passed through the valley of this lake, and named it _Valle de los Tules_ (valley of the rushes).

SUPPLEMENTARY LIST

_Acampo_ (common pasture), is the name of a village in San Joaquín County. See Final Index.

_Arroyo Buenos Aires_ (creek of the good airs), is in San Joaquín County.

_Caliente_ (hot), is the name of a town in Kern County.

_Chico_ (little), is the name of a town in Butte County, ninety-six miles north of Sacramento. This place derives its name from the Rancho Chico (the little ranch), of which General John Bidwell was the original grantee. The Arroyo Chico and the town both took their names from the ranch.—(Mr. Charles B. Turrill.)

_Chowchilla_, a large ranch in the San Joaquín Valley, takes its name from the Chowchilla Indians, a branch of the Moquelumnan family. Fremont refers to this name under a somewhat different spelling: “The springs and streams hereabout were waters of the _Chauchiles_ and _Mariposas_ Rivers, and the Indians of this village belonged to the _Chauchiles_ tribe.”

_Dos Palos_ (two sticks, or trees), is in Merced County, twenty miles southwest of Merced.

_Esparto_ (feather-grass), is a town in Yolo County.

_Esperanza_ (hope), is in Kings County, west of Lake Tulare.

_Hornitos_ (little ovens), is in Mariposa County, sixteen miles northwest of Mariposa. An attempt has been made to account for this name as a reference to the intense heat sometimes prevalent in that region, but the probable origin of the name is that given by Mr. J. P. Gagliardo, a resident of the place, who says it was derived “from a number of _hornitos_ built here by the first settlers, who located here about the early fifties.” _Hornos_ (ovens), of brick and adobe, built out-of-doors, and used to bake the bread for several families, were in very common use among the first Spanish settlers of California. Ovens were also used by the Indians, for, instead of eating their food raw or imperfectly cooked, they used quite elaborate methods in its preparation. Their ovens are thus described in the _Handbook of American Indians_, by Dr. Pliny E. Goddard, of the American Museum of Natural History: “The pit oven, consisting of a hole excavated in the ground, heated with fire, and then filled with food, which was covered over and allowed to cook, was general in America, though as a rule it was employed only occasionally, and principally for cooking vegetal substances. This method of cooking was found necessary to render acrid or poisonous foods harmless, and starchy foods saccharine, and as a preliminary in drying and preserving food for winter use. Most of the acorn-consuming Indians of California cooked acorn mush in small sand-pits. The soap-root was made palatable by cooking it in an earth-covered heap. The Hupa cook the same plant for about two days in a large pit lined with stones, in which a hot fire is maintained until the stones and surrounding earth are well heated; the fire is then drawn, the pit lined with leaves of wild grape and wood sorrel to improve the flavor of the bulbs, and a quantity of the bulbs thrown in; leaves are then placed on top, the whole is covered with earth, and a big fire built on top.” Mr. Charles B. Turrill states that “the meal of the ground acorns was placed in shallow hollows in the sand and water poured on it, by which means the bitter principle was leached out. Then the meal was placed in baskets and cooked by putting hot stones therein. The cooking was done in the basket, not in the sand.” Other Indians used pit ovens for baking clams, and the Panamints of California roasted cactus joints and mescal in pits. The Pueblo Indians used dome-shaped ovens of stone plastered with clay, a form that may have been imitated by the Spaniards, since their ovens were of that character.

“East Vidette, the Alps of the King-Kern divide.”]

_Modesto_ (modest), is the county-seat of Stanislaus County, and is thirty miles south of Stockton. According to residents of this town, “The place was first named Ralston in the year 1870, in honor of Mr. Ralston, who was then a very prominent resident of San Francisco, and president of the Bank of California. He was so modest that he preferred that some other name be adopted, so the name was changed to _Modesto_.” If this be the true story, it was surely a unique reason for the naming of a town.

_Oroville_ (gold-town), is a hybrid word made up of the Spanish _oro_ (gold), and the French _ville_ (town). Oroville is the county-seat of Butte County, and is on the Feather River, in the heart of a mining and fruit region.

_Río Vista_ (river view), is in Solano County, on the Sacramento River. Modern. Incorrect construction. It should be _Vista del Río_.

_Tehachapi_, an Indian word of which the meaning has not been ascertained, is the name of the mountain pass in Kern County across the Sierra Nevada, of which it approximately marks the southern limit, and of a town in the same county, thirty-five miles southeast of Bakersfield.

“In the famous Tahichapah Pass was a tribe called by themselves _Ta-hi-cha-pa-han-na_, and by the Kern Indians _Ta-hich_. This tribe is now extinct.”—(Powers’ _Tribes of California_.)

_Vacaville_ is situated in a beautiful and fertile valley in Solano County. It received its name from a family named _Vaca_, who were at one time prominent in that region. Manuel Vaca, the founder of the family, was a native of New Mexico, and came to California in 1841. “He was a hospitable man of good repute.”

XII

IN THE SIERRAS

THE SIERRA NEVADA

_The Sierra Nevada Mountains_, California’s wonder-land, derive their name from _sierra_ (saw), and _nevada_ (snowy),—descriptive of the saw-toothed outlines of the summits of the range, and the mantle of perpetual snow that covers the highest tops.

The term _Sierra Madre_, absurdly translated by some persons as “Mother of Christ,” means, of course, “Mother Sierra,” that is, the largest mountain range personified as the mother of the smaller ranges.

“The Sierra Nevada is generally considered to extend from Tehachapi Pass in the south to Lassen Peak in the north, and constitutes the dividing ridge between the great basin on the east, to which it falls abruptly, and the San Joaquín and Sacramento Valleys on the west. It is characterized by deep and narrow valleys, with almost vertical walls of rock thousands of feet in height, and its scenery is of surpassing grandeur, much more imposing than that of the Rockies. Many of its higher summits are covered with perpetual snow.”—(Lippincott’s _Gazetteer_.)

PIT RIVER

Among the many tributary streams that carry the waters of the Sierra Nevada down the western slope into the Sacramento, the _Pit_, often incorrectly spelled _Pitt_, is one of the most important, and, although not properly belonging in these pages, is included for the sake of the information to be gained concerning Indian customs.

“Above the snow line, south from Mount Brewer.”]

The natives along this river were in the habit of digging pits near the banks to catch bear and deer, and, on occasion, even their human enemies. The pits were dug in the regular trails of animals, twelve to fourteen feet deep, conical in shape, with a small opening at the top, covered with brush and earth. Signs, such as broken twigs, were placed as a warning to their own people, and sharp stakes were placed in the bottom to impale any creature that might fall in. Another account of this custom is given in Miller’s _Life Among the Modocs_: “Pits from ten to fifteen feet deep were dug, in which natives caught man and beast. These man-traps, for such was their primary use, were small at the mouth, widening toward the bottom, so that exit was impossible, even were the victim to escape impalement upon sharpened elk and deer horns, which were favorably placed for his reception. The opening was craftily concealed by means of light sticks, over which earth was scattered, and the better to deceive the unwary, travelers’ footprints were frequently stamped with a moccasin in the loose soil.” It was from these Indian pits that the river received its name.

PLUMAS

_Plumas_ (feathers), is the name of a county in the northeastern part of the state. It is drained by the Feather River, which flows through one of the deepest and most picturesque canyons in California. The county is characterized by its wild and rugged scenery, its deep canyons and extensive forests of evergreen trees. In the northwest corner Lassen Peak, now an active volcano, rises to a height of 10437 feet.

The county derives its name from its principal stream, which now appears under its English form of _The Feather_, but which was originally named _El Río de las Plumas_ (the river of the feathers), by Captain Luís A. Argüello, who led an exploring party up the valley in 1820, and whose attention was attracted by the great number of feathers of wild fowl floating on the surface of the river. Even to this day the valley of the Feather has remained a favorite haunt of the wild ducks and geese, as will be attested by the many hunters who seek sport there during the season. By an inconsistency, the county has retained the original Spanish name, _Plumas_, while that of the river has been Americanized. An erroneous and extremely far-fetched explanation of the name has often appeared in print to the effect that it was derived from a fancied resemblance between the spray of the river and a feather.

THE AMERICAN RIVER

The _American River_, another of the names which have been translated from the original Spanish, is formed by three forks rising in the Sierra Nevada, and empties into the Sacramento at the site of the city of that name. The three branches forming it run in deep canyons, sometimes two thousand feet in depth, and the scenery along its course is of a rugged and striking character.

The river was originally called _El Río de los Americanos_ (the river of the Americans), probably from the presence on its banks of a company of western trappers, who lived there from 1822 to 1830, and _not_ “because it was the usual route of travel by which Americans entered the state,” as is stated by Bancroft and others.

In Fremont’s time it was still known by its Spanish name, by which he refers to it in the following paragraph: “Just then a well-dressed Indian came up, and made his salutations in very well-spoken Spanish. In answer to our inquiries he informed us that we were upon the _Río de los Americanos_, and that it joined the Sacramento River about ten miles below. Never did a name sound more sweetly! We felt ourselves among our countrymen, for the name of American, in these distant parts, is applied to the citizens of the United States.”

“To this day the valley of the Feather is a favorite haunt for wild ducks and geese.”]

EL DORADO COUNTY

_El Dorado_ (the gilded man). Although it is known to most people, in a vague, general way, that the name _El Dorado_ was given to this county on account of the discovery of gold there, the romantic tales connected with the name are probably not so well known. The Indians of Peru, Venezuela, and New Granada, perhaps in the hope of inducing their oppressors to move on, were constantly pointing out to the Spaniards, first in one direction, then in another, a land of fabulous riches. This land was said to have a king, who caused his body to be covered every morning with gold dust, by means of an odorous resin. Each evening he washed it off, as it incommoded his sleep, and each morning had the gilding process repeated. From this fable the white men were led to believe that the country must be rich in gold, and long, costly, and fruitless expeditions were undertaken in pursuit of this phantom of _El Dorado_. In time the phrase _El Dorado_ came to be applied to regions where gold and other precious metals were thought to be plentiful. According to General Vallejo, one Francisco Orellana, a companion of the adventurer Pizarro, wrote a fictitious account of an _El Dorado_ in South America, “a region of genial clime and never-fading verdure, abounding in gold and precious stones, where wine gushed forth from never-ceasing springs, wheat fields grew ready-baked loaves of bread, birds already roasted flew among the trees, and nature was filled with harmony and sweetness.” Although old Mother Nature has not yet provided us with “bread ready-baked” or “birds ready-roasted” in California, her gifts to her children have been so bountiful that they may almost be compared to the fabulous tales of _El Dorado_, the gilded man.

PLACER COUNTY

_Placer_, the county in the Sierras famous for its surface gold-mining, has a puzzling name for which no satisfactory explanation has yet been found. Although it has been used in Spanish countries for centuries in the sense of surface mining, dictionaries remain silent upon the subject. The theory often advanced that the word is a contraction of _plaza de oro_ (place of gold), bears none of the marks of probability, and another that it means “a river where gold is found” is not supported by adequate authority. One old Spanish dictionary gives the meaning of _placer_ as “a sea bottom, level and of slight depth, of sand, mud, or stone,” and states also that the word is sometimes used to designate places where pearl diving is carried on. It may be that the word was extended from this usage to include placer mining, since in that case the gold is found in shallow pockets near the surface. This theory is offered here as a mere suggestion.

Placer County has some of the most striking mountain scenery in the state, and has been the theatre of many remarkable events in its history, particularly those connected with the “days of ’49.” In the town of Placerville, the county-seat of El Dorado County, there is an instance of a change of name from English to Spanish for the better, for this place was originally called _Hangtown_, in commemoration of the hanging of certain “bad men” on a tree there.

THE TRUCKEE RIVER

The _Truckee River_ rises on the borders of El Dorado and Placer Counties, and is the outlet of Lake Tahoe, discharging its waters into Pyramid Lake in Nevada. This mountain stream is justly celebrated for the wild charm of its scenery. There is a village bearing the same name, in Nevada County, well-known to travelers through being on the regular route to Tahoe. At this place winter sports, tobogganing, skiing, skating, etc., are provided for San Franciscans, who need to travel but a few hours to exchange their clime of eternal spring for the deep snows of the Sierras.

The explanation generally accepted for the name of _Truckee_ is that it was so-called for an Indian, by some accounts described as a Canadian trapper, who guided a party of explorers in 1844 to its lower crossing, where the town of Wadsworth now stands. The party, who were suffering from thirst, felt themselves to be under such obligations to the Indian for having guided them to this lovely mountain stream, with its crystal waters and abundance of fish, that they gave it his name. Of this Indian it is said that “he joined Fremont’s battalion, and was afterwards known as Captain Truckee; he became a great favorite with Fremont, who gave him a Bible. When he died he asked to be buried by white men in their style. The miners dug a grave near Como, in the croppings of the old Goliah ledge. Here he was laid to rest, with the Bible by his side.”—(_History of Nevada County._)

“It runs in deep canyons and the scenery along its course is rugged and striking.”]

LAKE TAHOE

_Tahoe_ is another of the Indian names whose meaning can not be ascertained with any degree of certainty. The definition “Big Water,” the one usually given, is considered doubtful by ethnologists. The statement has been made by intelligent Indians now living on the banks of the lake that the word, pronounced _Dá-o_ by them, means “deep” and “blue.” Yet it is much to know that this pearl among all lakes has at least been fortunate enough to receive an indigenous name, escaping by a narrow margin the ignominious fate of being called Lake Bigler, for a former governor of the state. It appears that Fremont was the first to give to this body of water a name, and it is shown upon his map under the rather indefinite title of Mountain Lake. Afterward it was known for a short time as Lake Bigler. The story goes that in 1859 Dr. Henry de Groot, while exploring the mountains, learned that _tah-oo-ee_ meant “a great deal of water,” and from this Tahoe was evolved as an appropriate name, but did not become attached to the lake until the period of the Civil War. During that time the Reverend Thomas Starr King, the famous “war” clergyman of San Francisco, visited the lake, and inspired by indignation against the Democratic Governor Bigler, whom he regarded as a secessionist, he definitely christened it _Tahoe_, for which we may be grateful to his memory, regardless of the motives by which he was actuated.

Tahoe is partly in Placer, and partly in El Dorado, at the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada, a portion of its waters also extending into the state of Nevada. It is twenty-two miles long and ten wide, and has an elevation of 6225 feet above sea level. It is especially remarkable for its great depth, being over 1500 feet deep.

AMADOR COUNTY

_Amador_ (literally “lover”), but in this case a surname. Amador is the long, narrow county lying between Calaveras and El Dorado, and was probably named in honor of the Amador family, either Don Pedro Amador, or his son, José María. Pedro Amador is said to have been a “soldier of fortune” in the Spanish army, who came to California in 1771. His son, José María, was also a soldier and a renowned Indian fighter, and was known to be living as late as 1883.

CALAVERAS

_Calaveras_ (skulls), is the name of a county in the central part of the Sierra Nevada, on the eastern border. This county is famous for its gold and copper mines, and its Giant Sequoias. The river, to which the name of Calaveras was first given, rises in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and flows southwest, emptying into the San Joaquín about fifteen miles below Stockton.

The river received its rather lugubrious name at the hands of Captain Moraga, who led the first expedition up the Sacramento and San Joaquín rivers. In his diary, Moraga says that the river tribes fought against those of the Sierra for possession of the salmon in the stream, and that in one battle as many as three thousand were said to have been killed and left on the field. A great number of skulls, relics of this bloody conflict, were found by Moraga scattered along the creek bed, and caused him to give it the name of _Las Calaveras_. We find in Fremont a corroborating reference to the salmon as a cause of dissension among the Indians of that region: “This fish had a large share in supporting the Indians, who raised nothing, but lived on what nature gave. A ‘salmon water,’ as they named it, was a valuable possession to a tribe or village, and jealously preserved as an inheritance.”

“ ... pearl among all lakes.”]

Particular interest was aroused in the Indian relics of this county some years ago by the finding of the celebrated “Calaveras skull,” purporting to have been taken from the Tertiary deposit, a stratum in which no human remains had ever before been discovered. A close examination into the circumstances, however, caused scientists to look with great doubt upon the assertion that the skull had been taken from the Tertiary deposit. In the _Handbook of American Indians_, published by the Smithsonian Institute, the following reference appears: “Remains of aborigines are plentiful in this county, embedded in ancient river gravels, from which gold was washed. By some scientists these remains were thought to belong to the Tertiary Age, but their resemblance to the modern Indian makes this doubtful. The Calaveras skull, still preserved in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, was said to have come from the gravels of Bald Mountain, at a depth of 130 feet, but there are good reasons for suspecting that it was derived from one of the limestone caves so numerous in that region.”

TUOLUMNE

_Tuolumne_ is the name of the county in the Sierras just east of Calaveras, and of the river which rises at the base of the Sierra Nevadas, and flows into the San Joaquín, twenty-five miles south of Stockton, a part of its course running through a deep canyon.

Here we have another of the river names ending in _umne_, already discussed under the heading of _Cosumne_. As stated before, _umne_ probably means “people of,” and it is held by some authorities that the meaning of _Tuolumne_ is “people of the stone houses, or caves.” Bancroft maintains this theory, holding that the name is a corruption of _talmalamne_, “a group of stone huts or caves, or collection of wigwams.” Objection has been raised to this theory on the ground that the Indians of California were not cave-dwellers, but universally lived in flimsy huts made of sticks and grass. This objection is cleared away in some measure by a very interesting paragraph in the diary of Padre Pedro Muñoz, who accompanied the Gabriel Moraga expedition of 1806 into that region. The passage in question relates: “On the morning of this day, the expedition went toward the east along the banks of the river, and having traveled about six leagues, we came upon a village called _Tautamne_. This village is situated on some steep precipices, inaccessible on account of their rough rocks. The Indians live in their _sótanos_ (cellars or caves); they go up and come down by means of a weak stick, held up by one of themselves while the one who descends slips down. They did not wish to come down from their hiding-places, and for me the ascent was too difficult. This village probably has about two hundred souls, judging by the considerable mass which we repeatedly made out among the rocks and corridors [or ledges], in the manner of balconies, which the precipice made.” This meeting with the cave-dwellers occurred at a spot about six leagues from the Guadalupe River, after the expedition had left the Merced. It is not, of course, to be inferred from this circumstance that the California Indians were genuine “cliff dwellers,” but rather that, at least in the mountainous parts of the state, they may have had the habit of taking refuge in natural caves from inclement weather or attacks of enemies.

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.

“ ... 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.

YOSEMITE

_Yosemite_ (grizzly bear, not _large_ grizzly bear, according to the scientists), said to have been called _Yohamite_ by the natives, is one of the few Indian names whose meaning has been ascertained with a reasonable degree of certainty. It must be remembered that Yosemite, like most Indian words, has been greatly corrupted from its original form, which was _u-zú-mai-ti_, _o-só-mai-ti_ or _uh-zú-mai-ti_, according to the tribe using it, and the valley was never known by this name to the Indians, but always as _A-wa-ni_, from the name of their principal village. Considering the great alteration of the name from its native form, it does not seem to be a matter of vital importance whether it shall now be used as one word, Yosemite, or in two words, Yo Semite, although the latter form was at one time the more general usage, and is greatly preferred by some persons. The valley was discovered in 1851 by Major James D. Savage of the United States army, while chasing the Indians, who had a bad habit of sallying forth from their hiding-place in the valley to commit depredations. The name was chosen by Dr. L. H. Bunnell, surgeon of the expedition, who tells the story in his _Discovery of the Yosemite_. He gave it the name of an Indian tribe living there and to whom this name had been given by other tribes, they calling themselves _Ah-wah-nee_. Their chief, Ten-ei-ya, said that when he was a young man the name _Yosemite_, or _Yohamite_, had been chosen because the tribe lived in the mountains and valleys which were the favorite resorts of the bears, and because his people were expert in killing them. He also said, perhaps in a spirit of boasting, that the name was bestowed upon his tribe to express the idea that they were held in as much fear as the bears. This band of Indians was said to have been originally composed of outlaws or refugees from other tribes, and may have well deserved their evil reputation.

Indian names, few of which can be scientifically defined, have been given to many peaks and waterfalls in the valley. In the folder printed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company more or less fanciful definitions are given for these names, for which there is no foundation in fact except in the case of Yosemite itself and _Hunto_, which really does mean “eye,” though not “_watching_ eye.” Tenaya Peak was probably named for the Yosemite chief, Ten-ei-ya. The definition of _Pi-wa-ack_ as “cataract of diamonds” is absurd on its face, for a moment’s thought will remind any one that diamonds were wholly unknown to the Indians of that time and place.

“_Ma-ta_ (the canyon), a generic word, in explaining which the Indians held up both hands to denote perpendicular walls.”—(Powers’ _Tribes of California_.)

“_Tis-se-yak_ is the name of an Indian woman who figured in a legend. The Indian woman cuts her hair straight across the forehead and allows the sides to drop along her cheeks, presenting a square face, which the Indians account the acme of female beauty, and they think they discover this square face in the vast front of South Dome.”—(Powers’ _Tribes of California_.)

_Cho-ko-nip-o-deh_, translated as “baby basket” in the Southern Pacific folder, means literally “dog-place” or “dog-house.”—(Powers’ _Tribes of California_.)

MONO

_Mono_ is the name of a county on the eastern border of the state, and of the lake near the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada. This lake is fourteen miles long and nine miles wide, and is peculiar in having no outlet, its waters being strongly saline and alkaline. It lies 6730 feet above sea-level and is almost completely destitute of animal life.

“The valley was called by the Indians _A-wa-ni_, from the name of their principal village.”]

This name, corrupted from _Monache_, the name of the Indians of this region, through its resemblance to the Spanish word _mono_ (monkey), has been the cause of considerable confusion, and of a number of extravagant theories, such as the supposed existence of monkeys in that country, or the resemblance of the natives to those animals, but the similarity between the two words is regarded by ethnologists as purely accidental. The meaning is obscure, but it is said that the name was applied to some Shoshonean tribes of southeastern California by their neighbors on the west.

INYO

_Inyo_, a word of unknown meaning, was the name of a tribe of Indians in the Sierra. Inyo County is on the eastern border of the state, adjacent to Nevada. Its largest stream is the Owens River, which flows into Owens Lake, another body of saline water having no outlet. This county has the unenviable distinction of containing within its borders the terrible “Death Valley,” where the bones of so many unfortunates have been left to whiten under the desert sun, and which still claims a victim now and then. This desolate valley is forty miles long, lying far below the level of the sea, is destitute of all vegetation, totally without water, subject to terrific heat, and in all respects well deserves its funereal name. Inyo is unique in containing the highest and lowest points in the United States, Mount Whitney and Death Valley, within sight of each other. In other parts of the county the mountain scenery is of remarkable grandeur, and the gold mines in which it is unusually rich are still worked with profit.

AMARGOSA RIVER

_Amargosa_ (bitter), is the very appropriate name of a river of Nevada and southeastern California which flows into Death Valley, sometimes known also as the Amargosa Desert. The mountains lying northeast of the river’s upper course are sometimes called the Amargosa Mountains. Fremont gives a characteristic picture of this dreary country in the following paragraph: “We traveled through a barren district, where a heavy gale was blowing about the loose sand, and, after a ride of eight miles, reached a large creek of salt and bitter water, running in a westerly direction, to meet the stream bed we had left. It is called by the Spaniards _Amargosa_, the bitter water of the desert.”

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.