Oct. i 7, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
637 
Manchac Pass, which unites Lakes Maurepas and 
Pontchartrain and Castoin, have exactly the 
same, meaning, being Indian words for “the 
pass.” Thus, also, two large cut-offs on the 
; Mississippi River are without any title, as 
fj Raccourci and Pointe Coupee cut-offs; the names 
they bear to-day mean simply “cut-off cut-offs.” 
Bayou Lafourche, one of the largest and most 
important navigable streams in southern Louisi¬ 
ana, has similarly lost half its title, Lafourche 
meaning only “the branch or fork.” In early 
Louisiana history it figured as “La Fourche des 
Chetimacs,” “the fork of the Chetimacs, In¬ 
dians,” but the latter half of the name has been 
lost and almost forgotten. 
All these names are pronounced very queerly. 
It is startling to learn that Natchitoches is 
Nakitosh, and Tchoupitoulas, Chopitoular. The 
correct pronunciation of words like these is re¬ 
garded as a sort of shibboleth, by which the 
stranger is. immediately detected, for the pro¬ 
nunciation is not based on any principle what¬ 
ever of either the French or English languages, 
but rather on the original spellings of the words 
which have in the past century or two passed 
through a dozen variations before they have 
assumed their present forms. The old names 
Quefoncte and Quelqueshuh for Tchefuncta and 
Calcasieu would be incomprehensible in Louisi¬ 
ana to-day. The Mississippi itself is a good 
instance of the variation through which these 
names have passed. Its original spelling, and 
the nearest approach to the Algonquin word, 
“the father of waters,” is Meche Sebe, a spell¬ 
ing still commonly used by the Louisiana 
Creoles. Tonti suggested Miche Sepe, which is 
somewhat nearer to the present spelling. 
Father Laval. still further modernized it into 
Michisipi, which another father, Labatt, soft¬ 
ened into Misisipi, the first specimen of the 
present spelling. The only changes since have 
been to overload the word with consonants. 
Marquette added the first, and some other ex¬ 
plorer the second “s,” making it Mississipi, and 
so it remains in France to this day, with only 
one “p.” The man who added the other has 
never been discovered, but he must have been an 
American, for at the time of the purchase of 
Louisiana the name was generally spelled in the 
colony with a single “p.” 
Regarding Tangipahoa, we are told by Peri- 
caut in his Annals of Louisiana from 1698 to 
1722: 
“The following day we continued our route, 
coasting along the shores of lake Pontchartrain, 
and about one league from Manchac found an- ■ 
other river, called by our Indian guide, Tangi- 
bao, which means ‘white corn.’ The water of 
this river is very agreeable. Three leagues be¬ 
yond we found a bayou called Castein Bayou, 
which signifies ‘the place of the passes.’ To 
the visitors to Mandeville the stream is a 
familiar one, as well as the Chinchuba, being 
derived from the Choctaw and meaning ‘little 
alligator.’ ” 
ON THE SHORES OF THE ARCTIC. 
I A 
A recent item in Forest and Stream of the 
exploring expedition under Captains V. Stefans- 
son and R. M. Anderson along the shores of 
the Arctic Ocean lends especial interest to a 
chapter in Charles Hallock’s “Peerless Alaska,” 
just issued by the Broadway Publishing Co. 
The chapter is entitled “Origin, Courses and 
Ethnography of the Russian Fur Trade.” 
Among other things it says: 
It is quite easy to follow the races, through 
] their commercial connection, across the Strait 
of Bering into what was so long known as 
Russian-American. By the year 1769, a very 
large area of that vast country had been so 
thoroughly prospected by fur hunters and ex¬ 
plorers that it was intelligently though rudely 
charted. Up to the time of the accession of 
the consolidated Russian Fur Company in 1779, 
no less than sixty distinct trading companies 
had been established. Ports were scattered all 
; over the interior, as well as along the coast. 
Hunting operations extended over three thou¬ 
sand miles, from Kadiak in the Aleutian chain 
over to the Kuriel Islands of Japan, and up to 
the extreme north coasts of Asia and America. 
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