Subject: It's also the preeminent theme of most American Indian sites
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Posted on: 2015-06-04 04:30:00 UTC

It's a running joke between AIS faculty here (Chinook, Wampanoag, and Okanogan) that almost all sacred sites are named things that, in their own tongue, translate to things like "Over there," "by the river," "right here," "a little way past the big rock," and so on.

Does it really matter, if everyone knows what you're talking about? Out here in the Pacific Northwest, you can talk about mountains, but when you say The Mountain, everyone knows perfectly well you mean Tahoma Rainier. Likewise "The Volcano" is really only ever going to refer to Mt St Helen's. And so on, and so forth - if you happen to live in White Plains, and you say "I'm going into the city tomorrow," literally everyone knows you mean NYC.

Linguistics are fun.

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