Place: CA-Royal Arches

Royal Arches-4,180' (Half Dome, Yosemite) (37.7465920, -119.5662750)

Description:
“The name given to the rocks now known as ‘The Royal Arches’ is Scho-ko-ya when alluding to the fall, and means ‘Basket Fall,’ as coming from To-ko-ya, and when referring to the rock itself it was called Scho-ko-ni, meaning the movable shade to a cradle, which, when in position, formed an arched shade over the infant’s head. The name of ‘The Royal Arch’ was given to it by a comrade who was a member of the Masonic Fraternity, and it has since been called ‘The Royal Arches’.” (Bunnell: Discovery of the Yosemite, 1880, p. 212.)

“Cho-ko-nip'o-deh (baby basket), Royal Arches. This curved and overhanging canopy-rock bears no little resemblance to an Indian baby-basket. Another form is cho-ko'ni; and either one means literally ‘dog-place’ or ‘dog-house.’” (Powers: Tribes of California, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, III, 1877, p. 364.)
Place Names of the High Sierra (1926) by Francis P. Farquhar

ROYAL ARCHES—The huge rock arches, 1800 feet long, on the north valley wall, opposite Glacier Point. It was named by a Royal Arch Mason prior to 1880. The Indians called it “Scho-ko-ni”, meaning “baby basket”, or the shade for a baby  basket. It is sometimes given as “”Cho-ko-nip-o-deh” similar in translation. One student of Indian language claims that “Cho-ko-ni’ means “dog house.” Bancroft gives the name as “Hun-to”, meaning the “watching eye”. This name is also given to an unidentified feature in another early leaflet, called the Round Tower.
Yosemite Valley Place Names (1955) by Richard J. Hartesveldt

From GNIS,     In Yosemite National Park, on the north wall of Yosemite Valley just west of Washington Column, above the Merced River at mile marker 129.  Also called:

• Cho-ko-nip-oo-deh: Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West Books, 1988. p123
• Hunto: Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West Books, 1988. p205
• Scho-ko-ni: Gudde, Erwin G. California Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1949. p291
• Scho-ko-ya:  Browning, Peter. Yosemite Place Names. Lafayette, California: Great West Books, 1988. p209
• The Royal Arch: Gudde, Erwin G. California Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1949. p291

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References:

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