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New town name roots uncovered:
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| By: Helen Block, Rice Lake |
August 19, 2009 |
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I grew up in Chetek and spent many later summers at our cottage on Prairie Lake. From early childhood I was told that Chetek was the Indian word for "pelican." However, as an adult that always bothered me because I never saw a pelican in Northern Wisconsin.
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My bird books tell me that the brown pelican lives and breeds only in the coastal waters of the South; the white pelican winters in Southern California and the Gulf of Mexico and breeds in British Columbia and Western Canada. It might only be seen in this area if blown off course during migration.
So I decided to do some research about this. First of all, the only American Indians who inhabited this area at the time it was settled were the Ojibwe/Chippewa, so the word had to be part of their vocabulary. Upon consulting two Ojibwe dictionaries, I find no word for pelican.
However, "The Dictionary of the Ojibway Language," by Frederick Baraga, lists the Ojibwe word for hawk as "kekkek." "The Ojibwe Word Resource Book," by John Nichols and Earl Nyholm, lists the word hawk as "gekek." Sounds like Chetek to me.
Does anyone know how and when it was determined that Chetek meant pelican? Frankly, I prefer that "our town" be named for those beautiful soaring hawks that we see often and are definitely local residents!
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©The Chetek Alert 2009
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Dale Hovland |
Aug, 24 2009 |
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Re: Chetek = Pelican
A http://wikipedia.org search for Chetek brings up an interesting article. It says Chetek (and various other spellings is from the Ojibwa word for pelican: zhede.
A Google search on: zhede pelican finds may other sources that agree.
There is a Lake Shetek in southwestern Minnesota. Western Minnesota has lots of White Pelicans in the summertime.
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