Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • S U M M E R 2 0 1 8 54 W I L D W E S T W OR DS with CHRYSTI THE WORDSMITH D E PA R T M E N T H E R I TA G E Y O G O "e moose is…grotesque and awkward... Why should it stand so high at the shoulders? Why have so long a head? Why have no tail to speak of?" Such were the musings of 19th century naturalist and essayist Henry David oreau. Author of Walden, or Life in the Woods, oreau was a student of local flora and fauna, including the long-headed, awkward-looking moose. Writing in the mid-1800s, oreau may not have known that the creature existed everywhere in the northern tier of North America, from oreau's Massachusetts, north and west to most Canadian provinces and Alaska, and down the Rocky Mountain spine from Montana to Colorado. Ungainly at first glance, the moose is nevertheless exqui- sitely adapted to its environment, from its long legs for high brush and snow clearance, to its bulbous nose with nostrils that close during aquatic grazing. Moose are noted for strip- ping bark from deciduous trees such as willow, aspen, and birch. is adaptation earned the animal its common name. e word moose comes from Algonquian, a language family spoken by natives of the east coast of Canada and the US. Translated into English, moose means "he strips off," a reference to the creature's distinctive browsing pattern. e word was spelled mus when it appeared in an English document dated 1614. Etymologists have long wrestled with the origins of the word sapphire. English borrowed it directly from the Old French safir, which came from the Latin sapphirus, which came from the Greek sappheiros, which seems to have referred to lapis lazuli, another blue stone. Here the etymological trail grows faint, but some scholars champion an older origin story hidden deep in Sanskrit, the classical language of India and Hinduism. ey suggest sapphire is the etymological descendant of sanipryia, the Sanskrit word referring to a blue precious stone. Sanipryia means "dear to (the planet) Saturn." Yogo is the variety of sapphire found in central Montana. Named for the gulch in which it is found, this gem is typically cornflower blue, a color result- ing from trace amounts of titanium and iron. Prospectors quickly extracted what little gold there was in Yogo Gulch in the late 1800s. Abandoning the gulch for more sustainable gold claims, the miners left behind another species of mineral wealth: small, blue stones that when cut became brilliant sapphires. ough prospectors clapped the ancient Sanskrit-Greek-Latin-French- English word sapphire on this stone, local legend has the word Yogo coming from the language of Piegan (Blackfoot), who traditionally inhabited the area and believed the word meant "blue sky." M O O S E W I L D W E S T W OR DS

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