Chautauqua defined

[WhiteCloud]

Just a little humor to lighten up the seriousness here. The Iroquois name of "Chautauqua" translates in english as "the place where one loses the way." From William Least Heat-Moon's narrative "River-Horse" P.78. What a name for an airline!

 

[W8N4UAL]

I'm no linguist, but...

I pulled this off a Google search and it's more in line with what I've heard from CHQ folks:

"It is said that Chautauqua is an American Indian word meaning "a bag tied in the middle" (to describe the shape of the lake) or "two moccasins tied together." I have also heard that some believe the word to mean "fish came from here," but it is more likely to be one of the first two."

Not nearly as useful for jokes, though...

W8N

 

[kepjet]

When we first started flying into Texas, we were telling ATC that Chautauqua was American Indian for "proceed direct destination".

 

[Dash8]

The real deal?

Chautauqua Gorge features in one of many stories about how the name Chautauqua came to be. The following story has been retold many times and is credited to various sources: one a Cayuga chief and another being a Seneca tradition. It revolves around the Portage Trail and a fish known to us as the muskellunge.

“Supposedly a party of Senecas returning from Ohio one spring made their way onto Chautauqua Lake via the outlet or Chadakoin River, as it is now known. As they were paddling through the lake, they caught a strange fish that they were not familiar with. They threw it on the bottom of their canoe and left it there. At the head of the lake they portaged over to Chautauqua Creek which was swollen with spring freshets. They went down the creek to Lake Erie where they discovered the strange fish was still alive. The fish was thrown into the lake and it swam away. After a period of time that type of fish became common in Lake Erie where they had never caught it before. They assumed that all these fish had come from the one they carried there from Chautauqua Lake. This they gave the name of, “Ga-ja-dah’-gwah,� which came from two Seneca words Ga-jah, meaning fish, and Ga-dah’-gwah, meaning taken out. Over time the word became contracted into Jah-dahgwah with the prefix Ga being dropped.�


phew, that was a lot of cut and pasting and editing...

 

[PHXFLYR]

I heard that Chautahgua is the Native American word for "commuter"!


PHXFLYR