Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/122

111 MUSICAL GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES. .111 snch nomenclature in the Anglo-Saxon lamniacp It is not a violent presumption to assume that it is of Indian origin. It is authoritatively stated by Amer- ican historians that it was the Comanche and Texas Indians whom the Spaniards met through Texas, Indian Territory and the southern part of Kansas; so may not C!omanche County, adjoining Barber County, be the place where part of the tribe had a stopping place when hunting buffalo, or when on the war path with the Kansas, Pawnee, Missouri or Osage Indians? WhUe on the subject of names, it is interesting to contemplate these aboriginal ones. — To say the least, they are musical, if not poetical. The following are names of counties in Quivira: Pawnee, Shawnee, Pot- tawatomie, "Wabaunsee, Comanche, Wyandotte, Cher- okee, Cheyenne and Osage. Of course it must be acknowledged that the only ones which could possibly go back to the date of our history is Pawnee, Coman- che, and Osage. These were Indians of the plains at the time Coronado visited Kansas, the others are remainders of the various tribes brought to the state in the middle of the 19th century by the United States Government, and located on separate reserva- tions. Osage County, without a doubt, is named after the tribe of that name, which was surely located in that neighborhood when the first white man came to the Osage river. It was and is now an ideal stream for canoeing, at least, for about 200 miles above the con- fluence. Do you observe that the nine names of counties in Kansas above designated aU end with "e"? There are five more named after the emigrant tribes, making fourteen out of the 105 counties in Kansas