DIVISION FIVE — NAMES. 



339 



I gave the translation, '' Because it is the Key of the Ranch'' "You 

 see," said Garfias, " the south side of the ranch from here to the Santa 

 Anita is all improved property, and enclosed with fences. On the north 

 side is the Sierra, and on the west is the Arroyo Seco. The little stretch be- 

 tween my house and the Marengo (the Bacon tract) is the gateway through 

 which outside stock must come, to ever get on my range, or my own stock 

 to escape ; and that is why I call this the ' Key of the Rancho.' " 

 So far, Judge Eaton's account. 



Dr. T. B. Elliott, the original projector 

 and president of the "Indiana Colony" 

 scheme as organized at Indianapolis, was a 

 man of books, and of some general scholar- 

 ship beyond the technical field of medicine. 

 He now took the matter up with a good 

 deal of zeal to carry out Mr. Fletcher's 

 idea, as the latter was also one of the 

 original Indiana Colony men. Dr. Elliott 

 searched all his own books to find some- 

 thing which would fit the case, but with- 

 out success. He then remembered that 

 when he was a student in Hamilton Col- 

 lege, New York, he had an intimate friend 

 and college mate who afterward went west 

 as a missionary among the Indians ; and 

 to him he wrote, explaining what Mr. 

 Fletcher wanted, and what Judge Eaton 

 had told about the "key of the ranch " or entrance to the upper part of 

 the valley — and asking the missionary for some Indian word of pleasant 

 sound which would serve as an appropriate and significant name for the new 

 settlement. In reply he received the following list of words which I have 

 copied verbatim from the original slip as written by the missionary himself, 

 and never before published : 



" Weoquan Pa sa de na — Crown of the valley. 



Gish ka de na Pa se de na — Peak of the Valley. 



Tape Daegun Pa sa de na — Key of the Valley. 



Pe qua de na Pa sa dena — Hill of the Valley. 



Accent last syllable of each compound word. Chippewa dialect."* 



* After writing this article I showed it to Theodore Coleman, who has been city editor of the Daily 

 Star ever since June, 1886. He formerly lived at Chippewa Falls, Wis., had some knowledge of the 

 language of those Indians, and thus becoming deeply interested in this matter, he wrote there for fur- 

 ther information ; and in reply received letters from Chas. Allen, Esq., of Chippewa Falls, and Rev. 

 Casimir Vogt, a Catholic priest of Bayfield, Wis., long time missionary among the Ojibway [same as 

 Chippewa] Indians. Mr. Allen is a half-blood of that race, and a reputable lawyer in his town. Rev. 

 Vogt says : " The root for Pasadena can be found in passa-an — I split something. Passadena is a space 

 formed by intersecting a range of hills or mountains"; etc. The letters received contain fifteen or 

 twenty different words and explanations ; and from it all Mr. Coleman writes in regard to the diflfereiit 

 words preceding Pasadena in Dr. Elliott's document : "One of these was weo-quan [hat] ; another was 

 gish-ka-dena [peak in a valley] : a third was tape-da-egun [key] ; and the fourth waspequa-dena [hill in 

 a valley]. The word for hat is the nearest synonym for crown the language contains ; and the term for 

 key signifies nothing but the metal article. "The Chippewa word for valley, or plain, is passa-ka-miga ; 

 that for hill ispig-wa-dena. Pasadena was therefore formed by combining the first half of one of these 

 . words with the last half of the other, giving to it the signification of valley in the hills, or between the 

 hills. Another Chippewa word " wanadena " is also used to signify a valley between mountains, but 

 ' passadena ' bears almost exactly the same interpretation." 



DR. T. B. ELLIOTT. 



