What does the word tahoma mean?

Answer 1

When I was at Frank's Landing on the Nisqually in 1968 participating in support for native fishing rights, I listened to the words of Maiselle Bridges at every opportunity. On one occasion she very powerfully asserted that the meaning of "Tahoma" was, "Don't forget the water, son." Don't forget the water, son--she repeated these words several times, with an intensity that embedded them in my heart, where they have been living for over fifty years.

Answer 2

There has been a very long and intense debate online about the real meaning of Tahoma, which is said to be the origin of Tacoma.

Some websites claim it is a word in the Salish language, others say it is a word in the Puyallup or S'Puyalupubsh language (technically Twulshootseed, a member of the Salishan language family) or various other native languages, with suggested meanings such as "snow peak", "frozen water", "mountain", "snowy mountain", "above everything", "mother of waters", "great white mountain" and various other definitions - some of them truly bizarre.

In a Salish dictionary the word for the peak of a mountain is chtgoichan; liquid frozen hard is es-nimap; a snowy place is mkotolegu; mountain is es-moko. Clearly none of these has any connection with Tahoma.

If it is a word in Twulshootseed, the real name and meaning are likely lost. That language is currently being "revitalised", meaning that much of it has disappeared through extinction and efforts are now being made to revive it - but it is likely in those circumstances that many more archaic words are forgotten.

It is unlikely that we will ever know for certain where Tahoma comes from and what it really means.

Answer 3

Daddy Yankee.