Piute Mountain (Dardanelles)
(Long, Lat)
Description:
“A well-known, or rather two well-known Shoshonean divisions, too wide-spread and too loosely organized to be truly designable as tribes, but each possessing a considerable uniformity of speech and customs. The Southern Paiute, who appear to have been first called by this name, lived in southwestern Utah, northern-most Arizona, southern Nevada, and southeastern California, and may be said to include the Chemehuevi and Kawaiisu. Their language is similar to Ute. The Northern Paiute, who disdain this name, although it is universally applied to them by Americans in their habitat, and who have also been called Paviotso in literature, speak a dialect virtually identical with Bannock. They live in eastern Oregon, northwestern Nevada, an eastern fringe of northern and central California, and apparently shade into the Mono. Thus the Indians of Owens River Valley, who appear to be substantially Monos, are commonly called Paiutes. The usual American pronunciation of Paiute is Paiyut, but the meaning of the word, which has been interpreted both as ‘water Ute’ and ‘true Ute,’ cannot be considered as positively determined. Most of the places in California called Piute or Pahute are in or near the range of the Southern Paiute or their close kindred; but a Piute mountain and creek in Tuolumne County are apparently named after the Mono-speaking Indians of Mono County, who affiliate with the ‘false’ or Northern Paiute.” (Kroeber: California Place Names of Indian Origin, 1916, p. 55.)
The pass was named by L. A. Winchell because it was used by Owens Valley Indians. The cañon of the creek was known from early days among the French sheepmen as French Cañon. (L. A. Winchell.)
J. N. Le Conte applied the name of the pass to the creek in 1904, to avoid the name of North Branch of the South Fork of the San Joaquin River. (S.C.B., 1905, v:3, p. 255.)
From Place Names of the High Sierra (1926) by Francis P. Farquhar
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