Place: CA-Three Brothers

Three Brothers-6,713' (Half Dome) (37.7415923,  -119.6151663)

Description:
“The Indian name for the three rocky peaks near which this capture was made was not then known to any of our battalion, but from the strange coincidence of three brothers being made prisoners so near them, we designated the peaks as the ‘Three Brothers.’ I soon learned that they were called by the Indians ‘Kom-po-pai-zes,’ from a fancied resemblance of the peaks to the heads of frogs when sitting up ready to leap. A fanciful interpretation has been given the Indian name as meaning ‘mountains playing leap-frog,’ but a literal translation is not desirable.” (Bunnell: Discovery of the Yosemite, 1911, p. 152.)

“Three points which the Indians know as ‘Eleacha,’ named after a plant much used for food, but which some lackadaisical person has given the commonplace name of ‘The Three Brothers’!” (Hutchings: Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, 1860, p. 94. See, also, Hutchings: In the Heart of the Sierras, 1886, pp. 67, 395.)

“Wawhawke. The Three Brothers; said to mean ‘falling rocks.’ The usual name given as that of the Three Brothers is ‘Pompomposus,’ equivalent to ‘Kompopaise’ given by our interpreter as the name of the small rock a little to the west of the Three Brothers. It was said to mean ‘Leaping Frog Rock.’ . . . The common idea is that the Indians imagined the mountains to be playing ‘Leap Frog.’ It would remain, in that case, to show that the Indians practice that, to us, familiar game; we have never caught them at it.” (Whitney Survey: The Yosemite Book, 1868, pp. 16-17.)

“Kom-pom-pe'sa, a low rock next west of Three Brothers. This is erroneously spelled ‘Pompompasus,’ applied to Three Brothers, and interpreted ‘Mountains playing leap-frog.’ The Indians know neither the word nor the game.” (Powers: Tribes of California, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, III, 1877, p. 363.)

[Web editor’s note: the correct translation is “a couple copulating”—dea. ]
Place Names of the High Sierra (1926) by Francis P. Farquhar

    In Yosemite National Park, on the north wall of Yosemite Valley, consists of three peaks, Eagle Peak, Middle Brother, and Lower Brother, 1.6 km (1 mi) west of Yosemite Lodge and 2.2 km (1.4 mi) northeast of El Capitan. (US-T121)  From the GNIS database

According to Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West Books, 1988. p144, the Three Brothers are also called: Wawhawke, Kom-po-pai-zes, and Eleacha

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