I

) publish the publications, ching, under-

!embership is :with 'copy of mtributing or ool Libraries. nembers, and •rrespondence and all other orical Society; <one: 217 I 525-·yillinois.org.

~gion. Studies ease send two ail). Authors ·ess) or imitate l supply them. :!es from 4,000 Editor, JISHS; ndale, Illinois , Book Review 1s University;

1bstracted and al is a member

;ponsibility for

~d four times a torical Society; i is printed by <gfield, Illinois. irical Society;

est.

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society

Vol. 98, No. 1-2 Spring-Summer, 2005

Editorial Advisory Board

Felix L. Armfield Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY

Raymond E. Hauser Waubonsee Community College, Sugar Grove

Robert Hennings David A. Badillo Lehman College, CUNY

Eastern Illinois University, Charleston

David C. Bartlett South Suburban College, South Holland

Ann Durkin Keating North Central College, Naperville

Robert McColley W. Roger Biles East Carolina University, Greenville, NC University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Rand Burnette Shirley J. Portwood

MacMurray College, Jacksonville Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville

David W. Scott Janet D. Cornelius Danville Area Community College, Danville Illinois State Historical Society, Springfield

Arvarh E. Strickland Joel S. Dryer Illinois Historical Art Project, Golf University of Missouri, Columbia, MO ..

Contributing Editors William Furry, ISHS

Jeffrey Douglas, Knox College, Galesburg Richard Allen Morton, Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta, GA

Editor Kay J. Carr, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Book Review Editor Michael C. Batinski, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale

Layout and Design Nancy Salefski, William Street Press, Decatur

Staff William Furry, Executive Director

Mary Lou Johnsrud, Office Manager Kay Winans, Bookkeeper

1

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Author Response

Revisiting Chicago

Michael McCafferty

This article is a response to a piece titled "A Critique of the Swenson/McCafferty Linguistic Analysis of The Word 'Chicago,"' recently published in this journal by Carl J. Weber.1

It is first important to provide some perspective. A few years ago Mr. Weber contacted me by e-mail to discuss the place name "Chicago." I receive correspondence from many people about American Indian place names in the Midwest, from children and historians to museum curators and tribal officials. Receiving inquiries is very much a part of my work as a professional ethnolinguist. During the exchange that Weber and I had, to which I invited Dr. David Costa, the world's authority on the Miami-Illinois language and a respected Algonquianist colleague of mine, Weber spent a great deal of time expressing a fervent but unfounded concern about the fact that the place name "Chicago" comes from an Algonquian language term meaning "ramp" or "wild leek," two English names for a native plant known sciel}tifically as Allium tricoccum. However, nothing Costa or I said to Weber seemed to resonate with him. Weber's concern was in fact reasonable since he has no experience with Algonquian linguistics and Miami-Illinois linguis­tics, nor does he know French or historical French spelling conventions. But anyone aspiring to analyze Native-American place names in the state of Illinois must have at least these abilities, no less than farmers here need a superior understanding of soil, terrain, insect pests, weeds, irrigation, fertilizer, etc., and engineers require expert knowledge of physics and mathematics in order to do their respective jobs. Unless one has the requisite knowledge under one's belt, one cannot simply go ven­turing through a field without leaving in one's wake a trail of mistakes, no matter what the field is-com, soybeans, engineering, or American Indian place name analysis. Understandably, then, the reader should realize that remarks related to linguistics that show up in Weber's work such as " ... technically, we are discussing the terminal morpheme-the singular animate gender marker,"2 are simply ideas and terminology

82

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gle. In I ofl abs

crit bee the abc cor did gra

'ct "Cl the in J

sio: Mi• But

"d oth · o~

art ' not;l lin; om Sw by' As bot sol w it,.

ritique of the d 'Chicago,"'

A few years ~ plan: name 1out American

historians to sverymuch a the exchange

:a, the world's Algonquianist ssing a fervent me "Chicago" tmp" or "wild cientifically as ~ber seemed to le since he has llinois linguis­.g conventions. ~ names in the m farmers here pests, weeds, knowledge of

)bs. Unless one simply go ven­ail of mistakes, g, or American reader should

1 Weber's work r10rpheme-the 1d terminology

.- -

gleaned and assembled from what Costa and I or I discussed with him. In this connection, Weber's introductory proclamation on the first page of his article about the ramp analysis for "Chicago" being "linguistically absurd" is itself inherently absurd. 3

People who know me also know that I place great value on good criticism. Unfortunately, Weber's critique offers nothing of substance because it is undermined from the very start by its failure to grasp both the premises and the particulars of what Swenson and I were talking about in our papers. Perhaps this explains why ideas were taken out of context and clearly presented evidence ignored. Weber's article, now, did point out two typographical errors in my paper, for which I am grateful.

In Weber's critique one of the first disquieting i terns, a portent of things to come, is its intent, also found on page one, to debunk the "Swenson/McCafferty claim ... that the original name of the city was 'Chicagoua."'4 But no one to my knowledge has ever made such a claim. "Chicagoua" was simply a way knowledgeable French people spelled the name in the Miami-Illinois language for a local watercourse. As noted in my paper, the site near the mouth of the Chicago River, once a mis­sion, fort and trading center were established there, was known to the Miami-Illinois people as svikaakonki "(the place) on the Ramp (River)."5

But the city has always been "Chicago." Weber's initial confusion aside, there is neither "dilemma" nor

"challenge" present in me, as he insists on the following page, or among other Algonquian linguists for that matter, concerning the ramp etymol­ogy of "Chicago," nor have I ever felt the need, contrary to what Weber's article states, to "save" or "defend" the ramp analysis. Moreover, I did

· not think, as imputed to me by Weber, that "Swenson's brand of linguistics exposed a gaping wound in the smelly onion defense."6 As one will see by reading the sections of my JISHS article that discuss Swenson's ideas, I simply recognized that some of what was presented by Swenson, who is not a linguist, needed some linguistic fine-tuning. Aside from a few minor linguistic errors and some linguistics-related botanical misidentifications, his treatment of the place name is very solid, very well researched, and its essential message will hold up very well in the future. The "smelly onion" analysis, as Weber chooses to call it, did not suffer in Swenson's able hands.

For a broader as well as a detailed picture of the place name

83

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"Chicago," I refer the interested reader first to Swenson's article in the Illinois Historical Journal, especially pages 235 to 243, and then to my article in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, and finally to my follow-up piece in the local French colonial history periodical Le Journal.7 In the meantime, I will briefly note here the fundamental points of the "Chicago" analysis and then proceed to round up and explain the many errant notions offered by Weber's article.

Despite what Weber's article says, there is nothing theoretical about the ramp analysis for the name "Chicago." It is clear that the Miami-Illinois people used the term sikaakwa, which means both "striped skunk" (Mephitis mephitis) and "ramp," or "wild leek," to name a con­ceptually unified watercourse, explained by the French explorer Rene de la Salle, 8 that bracketed the south branch of the Chicago River and the canal emptying into Lake Michigan, whose waters came from a little lake to the southwest ("le petit lac'' in French or "Mud Creek" later in English), plus the waters that flow-ed in the opposite direction out of that little lake toward the Des Plaines River, plus the waters of the Des Plaines River from that point down to the confluence of the Kankakee. (This is a Native hydrological conception. Various watercourses in the Midwest were defined differently by the Native peoples and the Europeans.)9

Since there are two meanings for sikaakwa, how do we know this waterway was named after the ramp? In the Miami-Illinois lpnguage simplex noun terms for the mammals common in all of the resource zones do not occur in the names of rivers or streams unless the hydronyms are eponymous, in other words, unless the name of a stream embodies the name of a specific person in some way connected to the stream whose personal, given name is a mammal term. This situation generally happens when a person's place of residence is located on a particular stream. We can see an example of this phenomenon in the name of (Big) Raccoon Creek, a tributary of the Wabash in west-central Indiana. This English hydronym is a translation of Miami-Illinois eehsi­pana siipiiwi "raccoon creek." The referent, however, is not the masked nocturnal omnivore, denizen of garbage cans; it is in fact a pro-British Miami-Piankashaw village leader of the rnid-1700s, a nephew of the famous Miami-Piankashaw chief meemeehSikia or La Demoiselle (French "dragonfly"). Eehsipana moved to this Indiana stream following the destruction of his uncle's village known as Pickawillany (from Shawnee pkiiwileni "Miami") in western Ohio in 1752. .

84

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in ma] Illinoi: namec South evider "Strip traditi sikaala River' for ex; fames de l'ai; there" menti growi

as sikai phono the on sents t the mi Illinoi~

critical spellin Inadd examp Indian syllabi just as "nuts-;

about both rr by wh Illinois the sto

on' s article in the . and then to my and finally to my

iodical Le f ournal.7 ntal points of the explain the many

)thing theoretical is clear that the

~ans both "striped " to name a con­explorer Rene de go River and the ~ from a little lake

Creek" later in ·ection out of that )f the Des Plaines nkakee. (This is a . in the Midwest Europeans. )9

do we know this Illinois language l of the resource ~ams unless the 11ame of a stream connected to the n. This situation ~ is located on a nomenon in the 1. in west-central tmi-Illinois eehsi-not the masked act a pro-British nephew of the

moiselle (French n following the '(from Shawnee

In contrast, simplex noun terms for plants do in fact occur in the names of streams in the Miami-Illinois language, as we see for example in mahkohpina siipiiwi, literally "bear-potato river," which is the Miami­Illinois name for the Macopin River, a tributary of the Illinois River, named after the wild sweet potato (lpomoea pandurata). In terms of the South Chicago River-lower Des Plaines River waterway, there is no evidence whatsoever that its name sikaakwa referred to anyone called "Striped Skunk," but there are pieces of historical evidence and a long tradition of botanical research indicating that the Miami-Illinois word sikaakwa as the name for the South Chicago River-lower Des Plaines River waterway refers to ramps, a kind of garlic. In his report from 1694, for example, the famous French soldier La Mathe-Cadillac of Detroit fame says that the name of the river translates to "Garlic River (Riviere de l'ail), because [the earth] naturally produces a great quantity of them there without any tending. A Miami village is there .... "1° Cadillac's com­ment is also botanically interesting since ramps are known to commonly grow in abundant populations, in eye-catching abundance.

The name of the waterway known to the Miami-Illinois peoples as sikaakwa was intelligently written "Chicagoiia," "Chikag8," and other phonologically identical ways in Jesuit documents since the Jesuits were the ones who first learned the Miami-Illinois language. Here Ch- repre­sents the sound s, c or k represents the sound k, the single written -a- in the middle of the word stands for the long vowel '\.vritten in Miami­Illinois linguistics as aa (Frenchmen did not recognize the semantically critical phenomenon of vowel length in Miami-Illinois), and finally the spelling combination -oua and the letter -8 both represent the sound wa. In addition, as so often happens with Native place names, as we see for example in the Miami-Illinois-based hydronym "Lake Wawasee" in Indiana, modern "Chicago" nicely preserves its Miami-Illinois strong syllable pattern. In other words, the name is pronounced "chi-CA-go," just as Miami-Illinois has "si-KAA-kwa." This, then, is the essential "nuts-and-bolts" linguistic information about this place name.

However, as an ethnolinguist, what I have also found interesting about this place name is its European history, which I also discussed in both my JISHS paper and the article in Le Journal. I have been intrigued by what happened to the word once Frenchmen ignorant of the Miami­Illinois language got a hold of it. Insofar as we have evidence, this part of the story begins with the French e?'plorer Robert-Ignace Cavelier, alias

85

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Rene de la Salle, whose botched spelling "Checagou" percolated out of his first trip to the West in the winter of 1679-80, six and half years after the first Frenchmen, the explorer Louis Jolliet and the Jesuit missionary­explorer Jacques Marquette, had passed along the waterway in question and over two and half years after another Jesuit missionary, Oaude-Jean Allouez, had been here. The reader should note, however, that La Salle's "Checagou" spelling is in no way an issue in the analysis of the place name "Chicago." "Checagou" is simply one of the early mangled spellings of this place name, and one of the countless distorted renderings of American Indian place names that we find all across North America throughout history. The only importance that "Checagou" has is the fact that it was partially responsible for the form of the modern place name "Chicago."

Now, with the very ease that a child who reads English has in recognizing the word "elephant" in the misspelling "elephan," the trained eye recognizes "Checagou" as an Eastern Great Lakes Algonquian term-specifically from either the Sauk-Fox-Mascouten language or the Miami-Illinois language-for "striped skunk/ ramp." The -e- in the first syllable could represent sekaakwa, an actual attested form of this term in the Peoria dialect of Miami-lllinois.11 It has also been suggested elsewhere that the template for La Salle's spelling could have been the cognate term in the Sauk-Fox-Mascouten language, a close linguistic cousin of Miami-Illinois. It is not impossible that Ma:icouten, which had e in the first syllable, could have been the source language of La Salle's term, as the Mascouten people were close allies of the Miami­Illinois-speaking Miami and Wea and even shared a large fortified town with the Miami in what is now Wisconsin and smaller villages with the Miami and the Wea elsewhere in the 1600s and 1700s. However, the historical evidence does not support a Mascouten origin for the place name in question. Since the Algonquian Miami-Illinois peoples were by far the predominant ethnic group in the Chicago area before, during and after La Salle was there, the name of the South Chicago-Des Plaines waterway, including La Salle's errant "Checagou" spelling-since he dealt almost exclusively with the dominant population when he was here-would have come from the Miami-Illinois language rather than from Mascouten. Chronologically speaking, in terms of the Algonquian post-diasporic settlement of the region in the late 1600s, a cognate Mascouten place name would have been a borrowing from Miami-

86

Illinois questic but h01 possibi Salle's sometr

Althou two, ar leamec in Nor: cem of Salle g Miss is~ times v his Iroc Iroquoi bywa} of Lak1 about) by a Je:

co min~ came ti speak l Countr was Sf procee1 showe1 in East East err the Al; spoken langua far-flur Rumar if you place n

f years after missionary­in question

:::Jaude-Jean 1at La Salle's ~place name spellings of 1derings of th America .s is the fact place name

;lish has in phan," the ~eat Lakes Mascouten nk/ramp." 1al attested s also been could have ge, a close v1ascouten, mguageof :he Miami­:ified town ~s with the wever, the ·the place es were by luring and es Plaines -since he m he was 3.ther than lgonquian a cognate n Miami-

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Illinois anyway. In the end, however, Weber does not realize that the question about La Salle's "Checagou" has never been what it refers to, but how it came to be distorted. My JISHS paper presented the only two possibilities, which I will restate below. However, to understand La Salle's "Checagou" spelling, it is important to first understand something about La Salle himself.

First of all, La Salle was Native American language-challenged. Although he was here a long time, long enough to learn a language or two, and could say a few words in Iroquois and Algonquian, he never learned any Native tongue. Sometimes La Salle's "linguistic moments" in North America take on a comedic quality, such as the time, reminis­cent of the "Who's on First?" routine of Abbott and Costello, when La Salle guesses that an Iroquois is giving him the name of the upper Mississippi River when in fact the man is saying "It isn't there" ;12 at other times we see the dark side of La Salle, as when he is caught lying about his Iroquoian language abilities when trying to be appointed the French­Iroquois translator on an important exploratory adventure going West by way of the as yet unexplored, Iroquois-controlled northern shoreline of Lake Erie. It should be noted, for Weber's benefit, that this report about La Salle's misbehaving was composed by a Sulpician priest, not by a Jesuit missionary.13

Second, in addition to La Salle's own Indian language short­comings, it is helpful to understand that his entire exploration teams came to the Illinois Country without anyone on them knowing how to speak Miami-Illinois. Of course, at the time La Salle was in the Illinois Country, Miami-Illinois was a new language for the French; in fact, it was spoken only by the Indians themselves and by one Jesuit, who proceeded to avoid the area once the virulently anti-Jesuit La Salle showed up.14 To deal with the communication problem, La Salle hauled in Eastern Algonquian Indians from New England. Now, although his Eastern Algonquians and the Miami-Illinois peoples spoke languages in the Algonquian language family, the Eastern Algonquian languages spoken by La Salle's translators and the Eastern Great Lakes Algonquian language Miami-Illinois were not mutually intelligible. Algonquian is a far-flung language family, and La Salle's situation would be like hiring Rumanians to do the translating for you on your trip to Portugal. Now, if you were to bring home linguistically inuddled forms of Portuguese place names, would anyone be surprised?

87

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Third, La Salle's flawed spelling "Checagou" is just the first known spelling on record of the name of the river called sikaakwa. Despite the fact that "Checagou" is commonly attributed to La Salle, there is nothing at all in the word itself or in the historical record that says La Salle was actually the first person to record it, nothing that proves La Salle actually got this place name from the lips of a native speaker of Miami-Illinois. In fact, just the opposite is true. The very form "Checagou" indicates indisputably that the spelling either existed before La Salle used it or. else suffered in La Salle's hands if in fact he did happen to record it. Regardless, it is crucial to understand that it was back in Quebec and in the many canoes plying the waters between Quebec and the Illinois Country that "Checagou" was actually popular­ized, and it was back in France where "Checagou" was actually codified by influential geographers related directly or indirectly to La Salle, none of whom had any knowledge of Algonquian whatsoever. Even though the origin of "Checagou" no doubt lies in a Native American language, once the original Native place name got contorted into the nonsense term "Checagou" and made its way back to civilization on French tongues, in French reports and on French maps, it became a French place name. It was no longer a Native place name-just as "Illinois," "Iowa," and "Wisconsin," while faintly echoing their Native origins, are not American Indian place names. To answer, then, Weber's question, "Why, for nearly a century, did people who did hear the word write it with "ou" at the end?"15 Because the people who both used "Checagou" and heard "Checagou" were speaking French to each other. This was now a European language place name. What the French called the waterway and what the Miami-Illinois Indians called the waterway were two different things. In addition to being historically attested, this fact is self­evident. Also, to answer another of Weber's questions, we do not have many intelligently spelled recordings of the actual Miami-Illinois name for the Chicago waterway simply because the Jesuits found no need to discuss this portage route all that often in the reports they wrote and sent back to Quebec and to France. As one would expect, it is the French place name, such as Cadillac's "la Riviere de Checagou," that got written down the most.16 This portage became very important to French traders and military officials, and they talked about it quite a lot, in French.

Fourth, since La Salle did not know the languages, he probably relied on the priests who accompanied him in his Western travels to get

88

I l r

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Native ter Miami-IlliI composed place, coul. of "his" pl Quebec to the priests · could have "Checagoui of the place 1,

symbol 8. P But, like all would ha~ "Checagou" transliterate to what Wet rence of 8 re ignorant Fre

Inde tion aboutw and not"wi1 discovered i: stand for wa ; ing Jacques~ the original 1

symbol corre his award-wi the same fun same time, m and their owi no question \ Indeed, the 1

historically a article. It sho Weber's carel· actually eight spellings in F despite Webe

1gou" is just the first lied sikaakwa. Despite I to La Salle, there is ll record that says La 1thing that proves La ,f a native speaker of :ue. The very form ~either existed before nds if in fact he did iderstand that it was the waters between

vas actually popular­was actually codified ~ctly to La Salle, none :soever. Even though American language,,

•d into the nonsense vilization on French became a French place llinois," "Iowa," and ~ins, are not American n, "Why, for nearly a · it with "ou" at the 1ecagou" and heard r. This was now a called the waterway .raterway were two ~sted, this fact is self­ons, we do not have Miami-Illinois name its found no need to orts they wrote and :pect, it is the French ou," that got written mt to French traders a lot, in French.

guages, he probably Testem travels to get

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Native terminology, as they are known to have tried learning some Miami-Illinois in order to proselytize the Indians. La Salle, who often composed his reports many moons after the events they describe took place, could have easily copied or transliterated a pre-existing spelling of "his" place name. Since it is known that he somehow managed in Quebec to get his hands on some Jesuit native language material, and the priests who associated with him interacted with the Jesuits, La Salle could have simply miscopied an original Jesuit spelling in the form "Checagoua" for sikaakwa or incorrectly transliterated a Jesuit recording of the place name such as "Checag8," also for sikaakwa, that ended in the symbol 8. As mentioned above, this letter can represent the sound wa. But, like all but a very small number of literate Frenchmen, La Salle would have naturally transliterated that 8 to ou, creating his "Checagou" spelling, since ou was the only way that 8 was thought to be transliterated. This copy error happened countless times. And, contrary to what Weber's article states, I provide excellent evidence for the occur­rence of 8 representing the sounds wa and waa in Miami-Illinois and for ignorant Frenchmen incorrectly transliterating 8 to ou.11

Indeed, the pontification by Weber to the effect that my explana- · tion about wa(a) being represented by the letter 8 was "yet to be tested" and not "widely accepted" is simply uninformed.18 David Costa and I discovered independently that 8 was written by-Jesuit missionaries to stand for wa and waa. My "eureka" moment came years ago while study­ing Jacques Marquette's "bare-bones" holograph map of the Mississippi, the original of which I have examined first hand, wherein this sound­symbol correspondence occurs three times. Costa discusses this issue in his award-winning book The Miami-Illinois Language, published at about the same time as my JISHS article that also discusses the matter. At the same time, our respective treatments of the subject have their own focus and their own set of data.19 Despite what Weber's article asserts, there is no question whatsoever that 8 was written for the sounds wa and waa. Indeed, the discussion of this linguistic phenomenon, with copious historically attested examples, takes up fully one-fifth of my ]ISHS article. It should be noted, too, that the symbol 8, again contrary to Weber's careless, incorrect linguistic statements, was used to represent actually eight different sounds in Miami-Illinois-and three different spellings in French: ou and oua and oa. In this connection, and again despite Weber's strange assumption and attendant complaint that I

89

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somehow work in an Algonquian vacuum,20 I have discussed the 8-wa(a) with Costa on several occasions and pointed out its usage to other linguists.

Now, the "Checagou" garbling seen from a second perspective, also mentioned in my JISHS paper, suggests that La Salle could have originally copied the Miami-Illinois hydronym in the form "Checagoa." This is a possibility because the letter combination oa, like oua, is also a very proper and long-standing way in French to write the sound wa, the sound of the last syllable of sikaakwa. Indeed, we should expect this place name to be written "Checagoa" or "Chicagoa," and I imagine it is likely that somewhere in the historical documents one or both of these forms exist.

Mistaking a cursive a for a written u or vice-versa is one the most common copying errors in the book. Interestingly, if one studies La Salle's handwriting carefully, one can see that his -a- and -u- can be identical in shape. Compare, for example, his -u- in "vous" in line six and his -a- in "laisserez" in line eight on page three of the autograph La Salle letter held at the Newberry Library.21 Thus, originally, La Salle could have correctly copied or written his place name in the form "Checagoa" and then later, not remembering how he spelled it the first ·time around, could have recomposed it as "Checagou" -and that form stuck, that is the one that got coined. His variant spellings of the Miami-Illinois name for the Kankakee River, for example, demonstrate that he was not " consistent in the way he went about spelling Native words. Personally, however, I favor the first theory. But this second one is also sound.

As noted in my writings, the -e- of "Checagou" is also interest­ing because it probably indicates that, unless this term is from the Peoria dialect of Miami-Illinois or from Mascouten sekaakwa, the person who first recorded it did not hear the Miami-Illinois vowel i in sikaakwa correctly. Of course, only the slightest lowering of the tongue differenti­ates the sound e from i. And, as I explained, this was a routine mishear­ing among untutored French scribes, and even among tutored Jesuits, working with Miami-Illinois and other Native languages who did not know the sound systems of the Native languages very well. The end product of the e-i mishearing is seen, for example, in "Ouabache," the early French spelling of [waabaahsi], the Miami-Illinois name for the Wabash River, and in the twisted "Michigane" for the Ottawa term [misigami] "big water," the origin of "Michigan.''. Actually, this

90

mishearing of e French documer fact, the Jesuit J Illinois tribe na1 situation to "Ch e, which is a m Naturally and/ c the linguistic fac French.

In fact, 1

exotic American acteristically de\ remarkably fron He seems to not the domino effe mouth, got dis1 becoming firmly blankets North "Massachusetts"

Now, the torical and lingu and who devel• Miami-Illinois la name, as when duced by monol Importantly, Gra France," as Web1 not found in La ~

article in Le Jour that the spellin1 historically impc in the Illinois Co speak Miami-Illi must have overlc article in Le Jourr he wrote, whicr expresses the be some sort of evic

ve discussed the i out its usage to

cond perspective, Salle could have

form "Checagoa." like oua, is also a the sound wa, the I expect this place

! magine it is likely 1th of these forms

sa is one the most f one studies La - and -u- can be Js" in line six and lltograph La Salle y, La Salle could form "Checagoa" first time around, )rm stuck, that is 'I.mi-Illinois name that he was not 'ords. Personally, also sound. " is also interest­s from the Peoria the person who

vel i in sikaakwa ongue differenti­routine mishear­; tutored Jesuits, ges who did not y well. The end "Ouabache," the )is name for the he Ottawa term ' Actually, this

mishearing of e for i is found almost everywhere one turns in historical French documents, including the Jesuits' Miami-Illinois dictionaries. In fact, the Jesuit Jacques Marquette's "8chage" spelling for the Miami­Illinois tribe name that signifies "Osage" represents a nearly parallel situation to "Checagou," since his 8 represents waa and his e stands for e, which is a misheard i. The actual Miami-Illinois term is waa'taasi.22 * Naturally and/or conveniently, Weber's article carelessly brushes aside the linguistic facts concerning the historical e-i mishearing among the French.

In fact, Weber's article expresses no awareness that words in exotic American languages recorded by inexperienced Europeans char­acteristically developed unorthodox orthographic forms that can differ remarkably from how the indigenous peoples actual say those words. He seems to not realize, further, that these wayward forms, by virtue of the domino effect produced by both the printing press and word of mouth, got disseminated far and wide among Europeans, thereby becoming firmly established in the lexicon. Indeed, this phenomenon blankets North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from "Massachusetts" to "Oregon."

Now, the Jesuit missionary Jacques Gravier, an authoritative his­torical and linguistic source, who spoke Miami-Illinois on a daily basis and who developed the Jesuits' grammatical urnjerstanding of the Miami-Illinois language, naturally used the real Native form of our place name, as when he wrote "Chicagoiia," not some distorted thing pro­duced by monolingual Frenchmen such as La Salle and his entourage. Importantly, Gravier is not the only person in the "entire history of New France," as Weber states,23 whose place name ends with a final a-sound not found in La Salle's "Checagou." I note for example in my follow-up article in Le Journal, which further elaborates the place name's history, that the spelling of the name with a final -a appears twice in the historically important memoirs of Pierre-Charles Delliette,24 who arrived in the Illinois Country very soon after La Salle was here, who learned to speak Miami-Illinois, and who knew the Chicago area intimately. Weber must have overlooked that particular piece of evidence even though my article in Le Journal was actually published alongside another article that he wrote, which I will get to below. Although Weber's JISHS article expresses the belief that Gravier's failure to translate the place name is some sort of evidence that the name is not genuine, it should be pointed

91

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out that Gravier would not have felt the least bit obliged to translate it. In fact, when was the last time the reader felt obliged to offer an analy­sis for "Springfield," "Wheaton," "Detroit," or "Duluth"? Gravier was not in the business of composing gazetteers. Even though he would have used Native language toponyms, hydronyms, and ethnonyms on a daily basis in his interactions with the Peoria, Kaskaskia, and other Illinois Indians, he did not spend his time writing down translations of them. A very busy, indeed, driven missionary, active from Michilimackinac to New Orleans, Gravier, according to the historical record, devoted himself to converting Indians and running his missions.

Weber's piece does offer two items of interest. The first is his recent discovery at the Chicago Historical Society of a La Sallian autograph spelling from 1683 of our place name, which, he reports, is "Checagou."25 This would be a nice catch. However, despite Weber's belief, this discovery in no way affects the proper analysis of the place name. One "Checagou" is as good, or as bad-and as irrelevant-as the next.

The other item of interest is his bringing to light the nineteenth­century work by John Kirkland concerning the "ramp" explanation for "Chicago."26 Although for no good reason, Weber excoriates Swenson for not having known about Kirkland when he wrote his IHJ article, it is nice to know that Kirkland and Swenson, separated by a century, arrived at the same conclusion independently.

For the most part, however, Weber's article is a launching pad for juvenilia. It unjustly accuses Swenson of exaggerating his reading of the historical documents related to the ramp's natural association with the South Chicago-lower Des Plaines waterway and casually dismisses one of Swenson's sources, the La Salle-era French visitor named Henri Joutel, as if this important local historical figure's memoirs were worth­less. Weber's article, although exhibiting no knowledge of ethnobotany, assails the ramp's early historic habitat as defined by Swenson, an onion expert. It attacks me by saying that I based my ramp analysis on Swenson's work, when it is obvious that Swenson and I came to "Chicago" from different directions. He journeyed by way of history and botany; I arrived on the "linguistics train" and traveled with my own set of findings.

Now, I do agree with Swenson's essential Allium tricoccum identification for our place name, but as anyone who reads my JISHS

92

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paper can see, I also disagree with him on other issues, and appropri­ately offer the reader both remedial as well as additional information. (For example, my statement that a plant did not have to grow every­where along a river for the river to be named after it has nothing to do with Swenson's analysis; it is simply a fact based on solid historical Native American place name evidence.) I am also in agreement with Swenson that wild onions were an important and vital local food commodity among the Miami-Illinois peoples, readily available to pre­historic I proto-historic I early historic Chicagoans. Weber's article rails against this fad, but one need only tum to the Antoine-Denis Raudot's excellent and easily accessible "Memoir Concerning the Different Indian Nations of North America," where, in referring specifically to the Illinois Country, he states, "This country produces ... kinds of onions of which the savages eat a great deal."27

Other various and sundry attacks by Weber in his article that cannot be easily collected into a coherent grouping for discussion include the following:

1) Weber's proclamations concerning the Illinois Indian leaders whose names translate to "Striped Skunk" are at least entertaining. However, his proposal that the personal name in questiop came from the name of the river is not only an example of his lack of knowledge of local ethnology but is a good example of what is called in the business "reaching for novelty."28 And it is also an insult to Native Americans.

Moreover, besides the fact that he puts words in my mouth when he has l!le calling one of these men "Chief Chicago," Weber, who some­how believes that there was only one historically attested Illinois Indian man named "Skunk," ignores the citations in my article, some of which refer to the Tamaroa leader and others to the Michigamea leader. (I incorrectly identified the Michigamea man as a Tamaroa. Of course, both were Illinois Indians). But what is baffling, not to mention irresponsible, is Weber's dismissal of the very existence of the Tamaroa leader. Marc Bergier, a priest from the Siminaire des Missions Etrangeres working among the Illinois Indians around the tum of the eighteenth century and an authoritative source, was the person who originally pointed out the existence of this Tamaroa man, one "Chicagoua," and defined his ethnicity."29 If I were to wager on whether this Tamaroa man existed, I would have to place my money with Father Bergier rather than with

93

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Weber. But, when all is said and done, Weber's article indicates that he simply did not understand my discussion of the Illinois Indian men named "Striped Skunk."30 My discussion relates only to the fact that since these men's names also were spelled "Chicago" and "Chicagou," other people besides La Salle garbled the Miami-Illinois word in question. It is very clear in my paper that my discussion of the Illinois Indian men named "Skunk" does not have to do with anything else.

2) Weber's complaint about Floyd Lounsbury's guidelines to Indian place name analysis and my important additional pointers is, admittedly, incomprehensible.31 All that I can make of it is that Weber imagines that Lounsbury' s "guidelines" were enshrined in gold and then frozen in time and that knowledge about Indian place names is a path with a particular terminus, that what Lounsbury said constitutes everything known about Indian place names, that there is nothing left either to discover or articulate.

3) Weber's article charges historians and linguists, including me, with picking on Rene de la Salle.32 He seems especially concerned with the treatment of La Salle by the eminent Quebecois historian Lucien Campeau, a couple of whose articles Weber was able to read, by the way, only because I supplied him in early 2004 with my English translatio~ of them. Since Campeau is no longer here to speak for himself, let me add for the record that, as a good friend of his, I never once heard him express any animus toward La Salle, whom we discussed at length. Campeau simply found the evidence and stated it. He was a very principled and compassionate man, and his compassion extended even to epic tragic figures like La Salle. That having been said, Campeau's genius was certainly capable of shining a light on the personal and ethical fault lines running through the lives of historical figures as well as on the gross and subtle mistakes committed by his fellow historians. Those who felt the heat were not just historical icons like La Salle, whom he examines in his "Les memoirs d' Allet rendus a leur auteur" ["Returning Allet' s Memoirs to their Author"], which is an article that not only tells a chilling story about how the explorer's mind worked, but also embodies a brilliant analysis by Campeau of La Salle's peculiar writing style;33 but also put the heat on fellow Jesuits, alive and dead, including Delanglez and Toupin, for example. At t~e same time, he

94

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Finally time for Le Jom La Salle's pre: accounted for, ered the Ohio Mississippi bel under the shee at all- deafeni the Mississippi would have he adventure to th there with the b and with the A

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expressed to me a great deal of respect for the great historian Delanglez, whom he knew personally. It is certainly to Campeau's great credit that he saw through the errors and shortcomings of Delanglez' s work, as for example in his "Les Cartes relatives a la decouverte du Mississipi par le P. Jacques Marquette et Louis Jolliet," and "Regards critiques sur la Narration du P. Jacques Marquette." In fact, Campeau's nine-volume Monumenta Novae Franciae are monuments themselves to historical scholarship and to the important French presence in North America.34

Now, as far as I am concerned, La Salle's record simply speaks for itself. Anyone who studies the explorer at any depth with an open mind cannot come away all touchy-feely, or inspired. After spending nearly a year reading La Salle's letters, I found him to be a very challenged individual both personally and interpersonally, an olympian self-promoter, and a failure as a linguist. His garbling "Checagou" does not strike me in the least as something unexpected.

Finally, Weber refers his reader to another article he wrote, this time for Le Journal. 35 For those who have not read it, here is the gist: Since La Salle's presence at every turn in North America is not precisely accounted for, Weber concludes that the Frenchman must have discov­ered the Ohio River, and in fact, as stated in his critique, saw the Mississippi before Marquette and Jolliet. But Weber's premise crumbles under the sheer weight of one enormous thing, or, to be precise, nothing at all- deafening silence. If La Salle had gone down the Ohio or visited the Mississippi prior to Marquette and Jolliet, we can be sure that we would have heard about it. Now, La Salle did undertake an exploratory adventure to the lands south of Quebec in the early 1670s, and journeyed there with the blessings of the intendant Jean Talon and Governor Frontenac, and with the knowledge of Louis XIV's minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Therefore, the papers of all three men, let alone La Salle's, should be wildly abuzz with discussions of such discoveries had they actually taken place. But there is not one reliable report that says La Salle saw the Ohio River or the Mississippi-until he descended the Mississippi in the late winter of 1681-1682. The quality, or the veracity, of the writing one sees on La Salle's so-called discovery of the Ohio is exemplified in an anonymous memoir in Margry that says, "He [La Salle} followed it [the Ohio J all the way to a place where it falls from a great height into a vast marsh." It is difficult to determine what planet that particular Ohio

95

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River is located on, but it is certainly not Earth.36 This sort of account differs immeasurably from those concerning Jolliet's and Marquette's exploration of the Mississippi, even when we figure in Jolliet's occasional hyperbole.

Now, it is not impossible that, when La Salle was roaming around Iroquoia, he could have glimpsed the headwaters of the Allegheny, which was the beginning of the river that the Iroquois called "Ohio." The historian Reuben Gold Thwaites thought as much.37 But, so far, no good evidence has surfaced that shows La Salle was the first European to see the Ohio or descend into the Ohio valley, or the first Frenchman to see the Mississippi. It will take much more than the circumstantial variety that Weber's paper offers in order to prove that La Salle was the first European to see the Ohio or middle Mississippi. As far as we know, the distinction for being the first European in the Ohio valley goes to the English colonist Gabriel Arthur. The only thing that La Salle "discovered". was the Kankakee River, which is, after all, not a bad catch.

Readers with comments or questions should feel free to contact me at mmccaffe@indiana.edu.

Notes ..

l Carl J. Weber, "A Critique of the Swenson/Mccafferty Linguistic Analysis of The Word 'Chicago,"' Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 97 (2004): 169-85. 2 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 170. See also the discussion of the place name "Chicago" at http:/ /linguistlist.org/issues/12/12-3157.html 3 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 169. 4 Weber, 11 A Critique ... ," 170. 5 Phonemic spellings are italic. 6 Weber, 11A Critique ... ," 170. 7 John F. Swenson, "Chicagou/Chicago: The Origin, Meaning, and Etymology of a Place Name," Illinois Historical Journal 84 (1991): 235-48; Michael McCafferty, 11 A Fresh Look at the Place Name Chicago," Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 96 (2003):116-29; Michael McCafferty, 11 Additional Notes on the Place Name Chicago," Le Journal 20, no. 3 (2004), 8-11. See also the website for the Center for French Historical Studies: www.noctrl.edu/ cfcs. 8 Pierre Margry, ed., Decouvertes et etablissements des Frarn;ais dans L' ouest et dans le sud de l' Amerique septentrionale 1614..:1754, Memoires et documents

96

in edit Press, 9 ThE site t~ sionai and" mi am fran~< aroun The s; after· Ignati the F1 [Freni au tho 10 M. 11 Mt 12 Se Decou 11Wab Confe1 13 Se Dollit tion f comic could 14 TI leam1 15 w 16 M 17 11

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Mi arr the Sc

Allied The c an in saawa IS w 19 D. Press. 20 w

sort of account 1d Marquette's ire in Jolliet's

~ was roaming waters of the Iroquois called much.37 But, so e was the first ley, or the first more than the o prove that La ;sissippi. As far min the Ohio ly thing that La ~r all, not a bad

free to contact

1istic Analysis of n (2004): 169-85. the place name

. and Etymology hael McCafferty, is State Historical tes on the Place website for the

tis dans L' ouest es et documents

.. ,_' <': ' I '. "'-~, •-, "; . ~-..' '

inedits recueillis et publies par Pierre Margry, 6 vols. (Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1974), 2:166. 9 The Miami-Illinois term for "striped skunk" and "ramp" was recorded on the site that is now downtown Chicago between 1696 and 1700 by the Jesuit mis­sionary Pierre-Frarn;ois Pinet, who defined the term as meaning both "skunk" and "ramp." See "chikag8a" on page 22 of Pierre-Fran~ois Pinet, [dictionnaire miami-illinois] [late 17th century]. Archives de la Societe de Jesus Canada fran~ais. I had not seen Pinet's data when I actually composed my JISHS paper around three years ago, but I am always gratified when new data come to light. The same definitions are found as well in the dictionary transcribed sometime after 1719 by the Jesuit missionary Antoine-Robert Le Boullenger (not "Joseph Ignatius Le Boulanger" as written by Weber),9 See "chicag8o" on page 5 under the French entry "de I' ail" in Antoine-Robert Le Boullenger, dit Jean-Baptiste, [French-Illinois dictionary] [after 1719]. John Carter Brown Library. (Copy in author's possession.) 10 Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 5:123. My translation. 11 McCafferty, "Additional Notes ... ," 9; also footnote 15. 12 See La Salle letter from Fort Frontenac, 22 August 1682, in Margry, ed., Dicouvertes, 2:245; and the discussion of this event in Michael McCafferty, "Wabash, Its Meaning and History." Proceedings of the Thirty-first Algonquian Conference (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2002), 226. 13 See "Recit de ce qui s' est passe de plus remarquable dans le voyage de MM. Dollier et Gallinee (1669-1670)," in Margry Decouvertes ... , l:li7. The interpreta­tion problems for the early French were immense and, from our perspective, comical. In fact, the expedition in question finally took on a Dutchman who could speak Iroquois ... but could not speak French. 14 This was Claude-Jean Allouez. Only one other Jesuit, Jacques Marquette, had learned the language by this time, but he had died in the spring of 1675. 15 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 171. 16 Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 5:123. 17 "Chaoiianou," the published form of Marquette's original spelling of the Miami-Illinois name for the Shawnee, given to him by an Illinois boy, suffered the same fate as "Checagou." See Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed. Jesuit Relations and Allied Document. 73 vols. (Cleveland: Burrows Brothers Co., 1896-1901), 54:188. The ou ending seen on this word in the Jesuit Relations cannot be anything but an incorrectly transliterated 8, since the term in question is Miami-Illinois saawanwa "south person." 18 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 175; 183, footnote 6. 19 David J. Costa, The Miami-Illinois Language. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003), 13; McCafferty, "A Fresh Lo0k ... ," 120. 20 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 183, footnote 6.

97

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!i J

21 Rene de la Salle, autograph Jetter, Newberry Library: manuscript lCHi36220. 22 t e est na ra rmmicke t e stress pattern in e iami-

mois term [waaba' vi]. How er, since French always accents the last sylla­ble of any term with two o ore syllables, the strong syllable of the Native term became in the Fren ·nd nal syllable of the hydronym. During the French regime, evolution of the term as a French place name took it from

'\!"" · [wa"lfeJ;~ to ab~e1 to [w ,v ·call f :Qu~.achi''-O "Ouabache" to "Ouabache " The i of modem "Chicago" is derived from the cor­

rect Jesuit and other spellings of the place name. For "8chage" see Jacques Marquette, 1674, [Carte du Mississippi], Archives de la Societe de Jesus Canada fram;ais: recueil 196; the best published copy of this map is in Sarah Jones Tucker, comp., Indian Villages of the Illinois Country, vol. II, Scientific Papers, Part I, Atlas (Springfield: Illinois State Museum, 1942), pl. V. 23 Weber, "A Critique ... , 181. 24 For the Pierre-Charles Delliette memoir references see Theodore Calvin Pease and Raymond C. Werner, eds., Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library, Vol. 23, (French Series, Vol. l, The French Foundations~ 1680-1693), 392. 25 Weber, "A Critique ... ," i72. 26 Weber, "A Critique ... , 174-5. 27 Antoine-Denis Raudot, "Memoir Concerning the Different Indian Nations of North America," in W. Vernon Kinietz, Indians of the Western Great ~akes 1615-1760 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1940), 386. 28 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 178-79. 29 For Marc Bergier and his Tamaroa "Chicagoua" see Mary Borgias Palm, The Jesuits of the Illinois Country 1673-1763 (Doctoral dissertation. St. Louis University, 1931), 37; also, Gilbert J. Garraghan, "New Light on Old Cahokia," Illinois Catholic Historical Review, 11: 119-20. Bergier learned some Miami-Illinois. 30 See McCafferty, A Fresh Look. .. ," 122. 31 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 181-82. 32 Weber, "A Critique ... ," 183. 33 Lucien Campeau, "Les memoires d' Allet rendus a leur auteur," Les Cahiers des Dix, 43 (1983): 27-59. 34 Lucien Campeau, "Les Cartes relatives a la decouverte du Mississipi par le P. Jacques Marquette et Louis Jolliet," Les Cahiers des Dix 47 (1992), 41-90; Lucien Campeau, "Regards critiques sur la Narration du P. Jacques Marquette." Les Cahiers des Dix 46 (1991), 21-60. 35 Carl J. Weber, "On La Salle's Discovery of the Ohio, An Argument Counter Delanglez," Le Journal 20, no. 3 (2004): 5-8. 36 Margry, ed., Decouvertes, 1:330. 37 Thwaites, ed. Jesuit Relations ... , 57:315.

98

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