Show ON THE 1 MEW ING OF pre ident win P admer of cedar city gives gies gi es we study to tl e andrin indi in A 1 l ord by livaich aae desi designate agnate our valley ind hills to east authorities IN president win R palmer of ce dar city possibly the best authority on the indian in this part of utah writes me as follows the gibbs articles are especially inte interesting esting he knows the indians as few white men know them and I 1 admire his attitude of sympathy tow ard them I 1 note that you quote me wrong on the meaning of the word it if you will look up the utah historical Hit orical quarterly vol 1 no 1 you will detect the error gibbs and I 1 would appear to be in conflict on the meaning of the word but we are not gibbs said pah vant means vanished waters the word has both meanings and they are not in conflict water can be close by as I 1 translated the word and still be receding as gibbs ren ders it here follows verbatim the full text of the utah historical quarter ly on the word which is included in a copyrighted article and to reproduce it the chronicle has secured written permission from mr air palmer 11 ritten for historical quarterly Quai terly it is not easy to get such informs tion nomenclature of indian names by which they designate the country they occupied and the meanings of those names now tor for the indians are not often communicative even to their trusted friends the older in deans who knew the names have a very limited understanding of eng lish it is difficult to make them understand what is wanted A auge valley in iri west cantril butth the Pa livant valley in millard county utah is a part of the an dent lake bonneville to the in deans sevier lake was the ing physical feature of this valley when the whites came it was much larger than it is now it was and still is the largest sheet of water be tween utah lake and the colorado river it was the largest body of water within the kahute realms and largest in the experience of most of the southern utah indians the valley was the home of quite a strong tribe who had at one time or adoth er farmed all around the lake shore fields belonging to this tribe iribe with corn wheat and beans still standing were found by the iron county col ony of settlers when on their march south in december 1850 they named the place corn creek from the incident offending of finding corn there editor editors s note corn creek is on the maps as running thru or close to kanosh and hatton and is the stream on which was killed by the hildreth party of emi grants which led to the killing ot of captain john W gunnison and party in retaliation in 1853 the word a sounded as in ait at means close to water one indian gave the definition down to water another said by the wa ter Al lother said at the water still another pointed to the ground ind said daid water right there pah vent or pa vent a as in at means on the water as a duck or a boat the indians who lived within the sevier lake valley were called pah vant its meaning indians from we vicinity of the big water lake the suffix its as used here means the same as our word ites when we say Ogden ites Denver ites etc the same suffix is found in a number of varia eions such as wits ats ats is a ich ints antez etc such vana varia eions are accounted tor for in the tact fact that articulation is not uniform a mong the various tribes and then it is difficult to make an exact tion of ludian sounds into written english of these variations wits its ats and Is are ot of the most common usage the Pa livant valley waa was also call ed by the indians pe ap tu deap which in this case meant big country or big valley deap or pe j t w ht amp is big tu deap la Is earth or ground that from president wm win R pal mer pf cedar city for whose friend hip to them the indians have in ducted him into their tribe and div en him the indian name tu cu bin which means friend apostle A W ivins wrote me un der date of june 29 1926 in part as follows the indians explained that pah vant means near the water one indian to illustrate pointing to the ground near said water right there A free translation of the word and the one which I 1 would give it would be LAKE SHORE joseph J pure blood in dian than informs me pah water vant hole bole Pa livant water hole I 1 und definition 6 water all the definitions even it if seem angly diverse agree on the one tun fun da mental WATER all the other apparent discrepancies are illus illustrato trat ed somewhat after this fashion I 1 were to ask of a mixed group of white persons myself igno rant of their language and not knowing their idioms and utterly foreign to their slang what is the word for that thing buzzing by one in the group scholarly and used to formal words would answer me automobile another in fix the group would shorten it to auto another with equal propriety might correctly reply bus A youngster it if the car didn dian t suit him would with conformity to street usa gesay 1 e isay an old tin tub while someone wish ing to be merry at my expense and still understood among hearers used to the phrase might say the tarn fait lly bone now all of these definitive words or phrases are to mean A horse less carriage a self propelled vehicle an automotive vehicular means of transportation fundamentally all the indians agree that primarily Pa livant meana means wa ter the variations arp are only those of interpreting into conr vernacular his concept and that means his degree of familiarity with our idiom so that when gibbs says vanish ing waters and palmer says water close by or apostle ivins would use the words lake shore to interpret his conception or joseph J vit water hole with all you can read in between the atnes in his in terp at bottom they all agree WATER close by here right there water vanished receding or any concept based on the words wit ter hole which may mean a lot or little according to what you want to read into it let me quote one sentence farther from president palmer in slon sion let me remind the reader that the indian has no written language he ile has therefore no authoritative standard by which to hold his speech uniform every camp has its own provincialisms our oar own vernacular varies we have a written dictionary to keep us uniform which the indian has not the concluding words of president palmers copyrighted article in the utah historical quarterly are As a means of arriving as nearly as possible at accuracy before otter offer ing this paper tor for publication all words presented herein with their pronunciation and definition were submitted to the most intelligent and understanding indians among the tribes of southern utah and they approved the rendition names and words in my list which they said were wrong have been eliminated after searching and using every test of proof I 1 pass on what has been given to me feeling that it is as near ly correct as painstaking research can make it As to pronunciation we here in delta say pah vant broad italian a as in ask and the final syllable much like vaunt with an au an sound let me say that the correct indian usage in pronunciation la Is a flat a a short a pah like pat and vant like cant because the broad paw la is the word for path trail or as we would say road the short pah a like in pat is water it sounds pretty to say paugh vaunt and we like it but the indian usage when correctly pro pronounce unc ed by them is pa vant short I 1 a in both syllables I 1 wish to thank my various inter mants frank beckwith sr v ja |