Effort for less offensive names includes N. Idaho, Montana

Lake Coeur d’Alene’s Squaw Bay may soon have a new name designed to recognize the area’s Native American heritage without insulting native women.

The Idaho Geographic Names Board voted 4-2 on July 27 to ask its federal counterpart to rechristen the well-known waterway as Neachen Bay.

Neachen refers to the onetime practice of hunting deer by driving them into Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The name change was among five the state board endorsed at the request of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. Other requests to rid the tribe’s traditional territory of “squaw” names are pending.

At least three of the requests will go before the U.S. Board on Geographic Names next Thursday in Washington, D.C. Others, including Neachen Bay, may be added to next week’s agenda or the board’s Oct. 3 agenda, a spokeswoman said.

Those already on next week’s agenda include two in Benewah County and one in Kootenai County. They went straight to the federal board without state action because all three are inside the Coeur d’Alene Reservation.

Squaw Creek in Kootenai County would become Squeatah Creek. In Kootenai County, another Squaw Creek would become Nehchen Creek, and Squaw Hump would be changed to Nehchen Bluff.

Nehchen was the wife of the last Coeur d’Alene chief to govern solely on a hereditary basis. She also was known as Ann Marie Moctelme.

Squeatah, also known as Mary Massislaw, was an Upper Spokane Indian who was relocated to the Coeur d’Alene Reservation.

The five changes that the Idaho names board approved in July are outside the reservation but within the tribe’s ancestral territory.

In addition to Neachen Bay, those changes would produce Steamchet Creek in Kootenai County, and Chimeash Creek, Spotwean Peak and Lockensuit Spring in Shoshone County.

Steamchet means eldest daughter, while chimeash is a young woman of good character, spotwean is a matriarch and lockensuit is a sweatlodge.

Suzi Pengilly, a state historian who works with the Idaho names board, said the board will consider renaming a pair of Squaw Creeks in Clearwater County when it meets in October. Tribal leaders want to substitute names meaning sister-in-law (Seastem) and aunt (Teakweh). Idaho Geographic Names Board members who voted in July to endorse the tribal name-change proposals on that month’s agenda were Judy Meyer, of Hayden Lake; Jesse Walters, of Boise; Eugene Place, of Hamer; and Fred Walters, of Cambridge.

Earl Bennett, of Genesee, and Bert Marley, of McCammon, said they weren’t opposed to eliminating “squaw” names, but they didn’t like the proposed replacements.

Pengilly said the U.S. Forest Service already has approved two of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe’s proposed changes.

A Forest Service campground in Shoshone County will be called Telichpah, in honor of a woman who lived near Avery. And a lookout station in Sanders County, Mont., will be called the Star Peak Lookout to match the already renamed mountain it sits atop.

Still pending before a Montana state committee created to address “squaw” names is a joint proposal of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to rename a creek in Sanders County. The proposed name, Sqaylth-kwum, refers to a place where falling waters can be heard.