Lots of the Indigenous names for Mount Rainier have been related to definitions like, “don’t forget the water,” “bring the water with us,” “to dip water,” “breast,” “plenty of food or nourishment,” “snow-capped mountain,” “fountain,” “she the mountain,” “(sky) wiper” and “white mountain,” Zahir wrote within the article.
Zahir stated these meanings could possibly be due to the distinctive abundance of water that flows from Mount Rainier’s glaciers and drainage basins into the encircling panorama. Different phrases “have become part of the metaphorical meaning of the names given to this mountain and express an element of the Indigenous cosmology,” he wrote.
“The Klickitat (a dialect of Ichishkíin) translation for the name for Mount Rainier taxuma is ‘woman’s breast’, ‘woman’s breast that feeds’. This is because the Earth is the mother, and she feeds the land with the milky waters that flow from taxuma, the mountain that is her breast,” Zahir wrote. “This mountain provides water to drink and white rivers that overflow and make the grasses grow. This is why taxuma also applies to other mountains, because these mountains have flowing waters that provide sustenance for the land and all living things, as well.”
Amber Hayward is program director for the Puyallup Tribe’s language program. She’s labored for the Tribe for about 25 years, beginning within the historic-preservation division. Zahir is a Lushootseed language advisor for the Tribe and was contracted by the Puyallup Tribe to write down the evaluation to reply longstanding neighborhood questions on, “What is the original Native name for Mt. Rainier and what does it mean?”, the tribe stated in a press launch.
