Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/448

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382
Lewis A. McArthur

the tribe name was associated with the word calamet, meaning stone, indicating that the Indians lived in a stony place. The Indian village of Caltharmar was on the south bank of the Columbia River, possibly not far from the present site of Knappa. Thomas N. Strong of Portland is authority for the statement that after the visit of Lewis and Clark, the Caltharmar nation, much reduced by disease, crossed the Columbia River and settled near the present town of Cathlamet, Washington.

Catlow, Harney County. Catlow is a post office in Harney County. There are a number of other geographic features in the neighborhood with this name, including Catlow Valley. The U. S. Geographic Board has adopted this form of spelling as being correct rather than Catlo or Catalow. These features were named for an early settler.

Cayuse, Umatilla County. Cayuse is a railroad station and post office about 11 miles east of Pendleton and is one of the few geographic features in the state named for the Cayuse Indians. In 1924 Professor Edwin T. Hodge of the University of Oregon applied the name Cayuse Crater to a vent on the south part of Broken Top Mountain in Deschutes County.

The Cayuse Indians were a Waiilatpuan tribe, formerly living at the headwaters of Walla Walla, Umatilla and Grande Ronde rivers, and between the Blue Mountains and Deschutes River. The tribe was closely associated with the neighboring Walla Wallas and Nez Perces, but were linguistically independent. After 1855 the tribe lived at the Umatilla reservation. Their language is practically extinct, and their members have been absorbed by the other tribes. The Cayuses committed the Whitman massacre in 1847. Alexander Ross gives the name Cayouse in First Settlers, page 127; Townsend's Narrative gives Kayouse; Palmer gives Caaguas and Kioose in his Journal (1845), page 53; Hale gives Cail-