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VANDEVER, MOUNT (11,800) | [Kaweah] |
VERMILION VALLEY | [Mount Goddard] |
VERNAL FALL | [Yosemite] |
“While gazing at its beauties, let us, now and forever, earnestly protest against the perpetuation of any other nomenclature to this wonder than ‘Pi-wy-ack,’ the name which is given to it by the Indians, which means ‘a shower of sparkling crystals,’ while ‘Vernal’ could, with much more appropriateness, be bestowed upon the name-giver, as the fall itself is one vast sheet of sparkling brightness and snowy whiteness, in which there is not the slightest approximation, even in the tint, to any thing ‘vernal’.” (Hutchings: Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California, 1860, p. 113.)
“Pai-wai'ak (white water?), Vernal Fall. The common word for ‘water’ is kik'kuh, but a-wai'a means ‘a lake’ or body of water, in two languages.” (Powers: Tribes of California, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, III, 1877, p. 364.)
“Mr. Hutchings, in criticising the name Vernal, has misstated the Indian name for this fall, furnished him by myself. . . . The name given by the Yosemites to the Ten-ie-ya branch of the Merced was unmistakably Py-we-ack. This name has been transferred from its original locality by some romantic preserver of Indian names. While passing over to Yan-o-pah, it was provided with an entirely new signification. It is indeed a laughable idea for me to even suppose a worm- and acorn-eating Indian would ever attempt to construct a name to mean ‘a shower of sparkling crystals’.” (Bunnell: Discovery of the Yosemite, 1880, p. 207.)
VIDETTE, EAST (12,742), WEST (12,229) | [Mount Whitney] |
VOGELSANG PEAK (11,511), LAKE, PASS | [Mount Lyell] |
VOLCANIC KNOB (11,153) | [Mount Goddard] |
VOLCANO CREEK, FALLS | [Olancha] |
(See Golden Trout Creek.)
VOLUNTEER PEAK (10,503) | [Bridgeport] |
(See Regulation Peak.) |
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