Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/179



Revival of the Rainier-Tacoma controversy may be recorded among the topics of current historical gossip. An Indian of the Nisqually tribe, Henry Sicade, appeared before the mountain-climbing Mazamas at Portland, June 5, 1918, speaking in behalf of Tacoma as the name of the lofty snowpeak, and relating "legends" of his people to support his argument. Sicade represented the Chamber of Commerce of Tacoma and was accompanied by S. W. Wall, newspaper man, and A. H. Denman, a photographer, both of that city.

The Indian word, Tacoma, was preserved by Theodore Winthrop in his The Canoe and the Saddle, a narrative of his travels in 1853. Winthrop said the word was "a generic term applied to all snowpeaks" (p. 36, John H. Williams' edition), and speaks of Mount Adams as "Tacoma the Second" (p 39). The word apparently designated any very lofty place or peak and not any one in particular. The present writer is indebted to Mr. George H. Himes for the following episode: About the year 1905, Mr. Himes was conversing near Rochester, Washington, with Jim Sanders, a Nisqually Indian. Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens were both in clear view. Suddenly the Indian, without previous allusion to the subject, exclaimed (pointing at Mount St. Helens) "Ten-as Tuh-ko-bud" in guttural accents, meaning "Little Tacoma." This Indian had been reared a Nisqually. His father was of that tribe, his mother, a Chehalis.

Mount Rainier was sighted and named May 7, 1792, by the British explorer, George Vancouver. Peter Rainier was then a rear-admiral of the British navy. Bestowal of his name upon the snowpeak was made by Vancouver in honor of a superior officer, although Rainier was not a party to the exploration.