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Sierra Club Bulletin. 



the name of the mountain as "Tacobet"; among these 

 was the daughter of Chief Seattle. These Indians all 

 belonged to the Puget Sound side of the mountain : a few- 

 belonging to or representing the east side of the mountain 

 said "the old Indian name is and always was 'Ta-ho-ma/ " 

 Col. B. F. Shaw, who had been an Indian interpreter, 

 wrote that the word Tacoma ''belongs to the Scadgit 

 Indian language, and means plenty of food or nourish- 

 ment." 



Mr. John Flett, who came to Puget Sound in 1841, 

 gave evidence to Hon. El wood Evans in 1882, that "the 

 Indians from the east side of the mountains (the Klick- 

 itats) call it Ta-ho-ma," . . . which "meant a woman's 

 breast." . . . Mr. Flett "translated their guttural expres- 

 sions, which resulted in aggregating the word 'Tahoma,' 

 though really no two Indians pronounced the word ex- 

 actly aHke," (page 6). 



Mr. T. I. McKenney, at one time Superintendent of 

 Indian Affairs, thought "the present 'Tacoma' was a cor- 

 ruption of the Indian 'Tacopa' or 'Ta-co-pe,' which in 

 Indian means white" (page 6). 



Theodore Winthrop, in his book published in 1862, 

 had a Klickitat guide from Puget Sound to the Dalles, 

 Columbia River, in 1853 ; and from this guide he obtained 

 the name "Tachoma," which several authorities say is 

 strongly guttural. 



The address of Judge James Wickersham, covering the 

 extracts we have quoted from the Proceedings of the 

 Academy, is dated February 6, 1893. 



In August, 1883, Messrs. Geo. B. Bayley, of San 

 Francisco, and P. B. Van Trump, of Yelm, made the 

 ascent of Mt. Rainier to the southern peak or edge of 

 the old crater; and at the close of the published descrip- 

 tion, Mr. Van Trump writes: "Our neighbors of Taco- 

 ma, and some late writers, are dropping the time-honored 

 name of Rainier, and are giving the mountain its Indian 

 appellation, but spell and pronounce it the same as the 

 name of the would-be city of the West. If the Indian 



