Body parts in peak names?

[Paradox]

Sheesh, is this what you do with your time when your patients are under anesthesia?

methinks the Double Doc has gotten into the nitrous a wee bit early today.

Who, me?! I am off today... as for the two of you, GET BACK TO WORK!!

 

[dug]

I wanted to put the original name for Roger's Ledge, but thought better of it.

 

[erugs]

For the sake of accuracy, let's take the Tetons off the list. It's a tribal name, not one of human anatomy, although that has been added by people who "titter."

Teton (contr. of Titonwan, 'dwellers on the prairie'). The western and principal division of the Dakota or Sioux, including all the bands formerly ranging west of Missouri river, and now residing on reservations in South Dakota and North Dakota. The bands officially recognized are.
Oglala of Pine Ridge agency
Brule of Rosebud and Lower Brule agencies
Blackfoot
Miniconjou
Sans Arc
Two Kettle of Cheyenne River agency
Hunkpapa, etc., of Standing Rock agency.

Source: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/siouan/tetonhist.htm

 

[WhiteMTHike]

Blue Job Mountain...

 

[Chip]

For the sake of accuracy, let's take the Tetons off the list. It's a tribal name, not one of human anatomy, although that has been added by people who "titter."

Teton (contr. of Titonwan, 'dwellers on the prairie').

Source: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/siouan/tetonhist.htm

Interesting. Definately not the story the National Park Service or local climbing and rafting guides give.

It does look like you're probably correct.

I guess the popular version of the name origin is just a bit more colorful.

 

[erugs]

Interesting. Definately not the story the National Park Service or local climbing and rafting guides give.

I know. They like to give the "popularized" version. Brian and I climbed the Grand two summers ago. There is no way that range looks anything like any anatomy I've ever seen! Maybe new-growth shaven leg hair under a microscope?

 

[lattinhill]

Not part of any peak , but there's Giant's Thumb on the AT in Salisbury Ct.
All by itself in the woods, it looks like something from Stonehenge or Easter Island .

 

[Chip]

Not part of any peak , but there's Giant's Thumb on the AT in Salisbury Ct.
All by itself in the woods, it looks like something from Stonehenge or Easter Island .

 

[DougPaul]

For the sake of accuracy, let's take the Tetons off the list. It's a tribal name, not one of human anatomy, although that has been added by people who "titter."

Source: http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/tribes/siouan/tetonhist.htm

Nowhere does this reference mention the Grand Tetons (mountains).


From: "A Place Called Jackson Hole"
"A Historic Resource Study of Grand Teton National Park"
by
John Daugherty
with contributions by
Stephanie Crockett, William H. Goetzmann, Reynold G. Jackson
1999
http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/grte2/hrs.htm

From Chapter 3 "The Fur Trappers" http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/grte2/hrs3.htm :

"Here one of the guides paused, and, after considering the vast landscape attentively, pointed to three mountain peaks glistening with snow, which rose, he said above a fork of the Columbia river. They were hailed by travelers with that joy which a beacon on a seashore is hailed by mariners after a long and dangerous voyage." This is the first reference to the Tetons as the celebrated landmark of fur trappers. Washington Irving noted that by the 1830s these peaks were known as the Tetons, but "as they had been guiding points for many days to Mr. Hunt, he gave them the name of Pilot Knobs."

The most remarkable heights in any part of the great backbone of America are three elevated insular mountains, or peaks, which are seen at a distance of one hundred and fifty miles: the hunters very aptly designate them the Pilot Knobs (they are now generally known as the Three Paps or Tetons; and the source of the Great Snake River is in their neighbor-hood). . . .

This reference supports the body part derived name.


Just because two names are spelled or pronounced the same does not necessarily mean they have a common derivation.

Doug

 

[erugs]

I don't have the time to do full research for this question now, but when I visited the Grand Tetons I learned that the Teton name came from the tribe. It makes sense, as the tribe is from the same area and came first. The French who have been given most credit for "anatomizing" the name came later. If I wasn't so busy...

 

[Chip]

I don't have the time to do full research for this question now, but when I visited the Grand Tetons I learned that the Teton name came from the tribe. It makes sense, as the tribe is from the same area and came first. The French who have been given most credit for "anatomizing" the name came later. If I wasn't so busy...

This link that I posted before as an Edit describes the argument pretty well. I don't know who the quoted expert is, but he's not trying to make anything up.

 

[Paradox]

.... I don't know who the quoted expert is, but he's not trying to make anything up.

My OED confirms this.

 

[Paradox]

While I've never been fortunate enough to bump into this ....apparently it's not all that rare - maybe just in these parts?

It is not rare in science fiction, but in the real world it doesn't exist as far as we know. Then again I'm sure UFC will keep us abreast of the situation.

 

[nartreb]

Sorry, but Nesbitt's favored derivation of "tetone" {from a Lakota word for "people of the plains", applied to a Wyoming tribe} is inconsistent with the fact that the name is applied to a group of *mountains*. The earliest recorded use of "teton" to refer to the mountains is from the McKenzie expedition of 1818, and it's worth noting that the name is in French, the language of his guides: "les Trois Tetons". That name does not make grammatical sense as a reference to a tribe; it only makes sense as a descriptive metaphor invoking body parts.

Of course, the name "Teton" comes up in lots of place names for places that look nothing like breasts. Some are clearly derivative of the nearby mountains ("Teton pass" had a different name in the 1800s). Some of them might come from the tribe, though some are so far-flung that I doubt it. There might be a third, never-recorded, origin for these last.

So it's impossible to be certain. It's entirely possible that McKenzie's French and Iroquois guides took a name that originally referred to the tribe, and changed it to suit their own taste. But that process wasn't recorded, if it happened. As far as where the English name for the mountains came from, I believe it came from a body part reference.

 

[rrmayn2000]

its not a peak but there is Jeffersons Knees.

 

[DSettahr]

Interesting story about Nippletop: Apparently, at one point, a group of "concerned mothers" at Elk Lake Lodge got together and formed a group who's objective was to change the name of the mountain. They wanted the mountain to be called "Dial" instead. Obviously, their efforts to rename Nippletop failed, but their legacy lives on in the name of the next mountain north in the range.

I have no idea if this is true or not but it makes for an amusing story.

 

[Paradox]

Braintree Mountain, Vermont