Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/25

Rh not Clackamas, seems to have been adopted by the United States Bureau of Ethnology. The name is given as Clackama in its "Hand Book of American Indians North of Mexico," Vol. 1, page 302. If the name be Clackama, then the final syllable, "mas," should be pronounced as the plural of "ma" and 1 not as though spelled "mass." It is true that writers of early reports, journals, and books on Oregon usually gave the name of the Indians of a tribe and not that of the tribe itself, so they are given in an English plural form, e. g.: Clatsops instead of Clatsop; Multnomahs, instead of Multnomah, etc. But the Indians did not form plurals of their names by adding a final "s". Camas is the Indian name of an edible root and is not a plural of cama, if there be such a word as cama. At least I never heard of it. It will be noted that Lewis and Clark, in their "Journals," say the name is that of the river as well as that of the tribe, as I have already shown by quotations from their "Journals." In their "Estimate of the Western Indians", giving names of tribes west of the Rocky Mountains and drawn up by Lewis and Clark during the winter of 1805-6, while they were at Fort Clatsop, the names of many tribes are given. On their return journey, they came into further contact with the tribes and learned more of those southward on the Willamette River. This information they added to the original draft of said "Estimate." This is shown in an editorial note by Reuben Gold Thwaites in the "Original Journals," Volume 6, pages 113 and 114. The complete "Estimate" is set forth in Volume 6, pages 1 14-120. In this "Estimate" the names of one hundred and thirteen tribes are given. Of these fourteen only are spelled with a final "s". Of the other ninety-nine, a few have a final "s", but used with an apostrophe. On page 118 of Volume 6, it is said:

"CLARK-A-MUS Nation reside on a large river of the Same name which heads in Mt. Jefferson and discharges itself into the Multnomah", etc.

In Coues' Henry and Thompson's "Journals," Vol. 2, pages 810-81 1, it is said, as I have already quoted, that the river is