Lewis & Clark National Historic TrailPage 115 of 235
Five Native Words from the Lewis and Clark Trail: Butterfly, Cous, Salmon and More
The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail crosses the homelands of more than sixty tribes, which celebrate their own languages, art, culture and innovation. The National Park Service page behind this one offers the names of a few plants and animals in Indigenous languages, with audio. Each plant and animal has dozens of names, depending on who is speaking and in what language, so these five are samples, not the name.
Image from the National Park Service's page.
| Word (how it sounds) | Means | Language | Trail site in that language region |
|---|---|---|---|
| sawiitakaá'A (sah-WE-tah-KAH) | butterfly | Arikara, a Great Plains language | Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, Stanton, ND |
| qáamsit (COM-sit) | cous root, biscuit root | Nimipuutímt, spoken by the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce); qáamsit is the fresh plant, qáaws the plant peeled and dried | Nez Perce National Historical Park, Lapwai, ID |
| kwənat (Gwan-net) | salmon | Chinuk Wawa | Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Vancouver, WA |
| pispíza (pees-PEE-zah) | prairie dog | Lakota, a Siouan language of the Northern Plains and Missouri River Valley | Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center, Chamberlain, SD |
| oonsaawaahkwa (Ooon-zah-waah-qwa) | Osage orange | Myaamiaataweenki, "Miami-Illinois," which originated in the lands that became Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin | Falls of the Ohio State Park, Clarksville, IN |
About the languages
Chinuk Wawa developed at the mouth of the Columbia River as a trade language that helped the many tribes and European traders there communicate. It draws heavily on lower Chinook and also took in parts of Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootkan), Salish and other Native languages, as well as French and English.
Salmon (kwənat). Image from the National Park Service's page.
Prairie dogs (pispíza). Image from the National Park Service's page.
Osage orange (oonsaawaahkwa). Image from the National Park Service's page.
The speakers' own sources
Each word comes from a language program that works with a living language: the Arikara dictionary of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Language Project; the Nez Perce Language Program of the Nez Perce Tribe; the Chinuk Wawa Education Program of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde; the Lakota Language Consortium; and the Myaamia Center at Miami University. The NPS page also names a sixth entry, a Shoshoni word for the sage grouse, whose dictionary is shared under a license that forbids commercial use and changes; it is left out here.
Sources
- National Park Service, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, "Native Names of Plants and Animals along the Lewis and Clark Trail" (https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/native-names-of-plants-and-animals-along-the-lewis-and-clark-trail.htm); words and audio credited on the NPS page to the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Language Project, the Nez Perce Language Program, the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Chinuk Wawa Education Program, the Lakota Language Consortium and the Myaamia Center at Miami University; rewritten in hubnx's own words.