Jaybird again !

[hzenk at PDX.EDU]

> According to Don Boucher’s message of 14 Dec. 1998, Tehanie
> means “Steller’s Jay” in Chinook Wawa.
>
> According to V.R. Ray’s “Lower Chinook Ethnographic Notes” (Seattle:
> University of Washington, 1938), te:’xanat means “Bluejay” in Lower Chinook.
>
> The two bird names are obviously connected etymologically.
> Does this mean that Steller’s Jay and Bluejay are two names for the same
> bird species?
>

For Bay Center country at the coast, where Ray's informants lived, probably so.
The Steller's Jay has a blue topknot and favors deep forest.  In the Willamette
Valley and like more open country in the interior, there is also the so-called
scrubjay, no topknot and white not blue underneath.  Both birds are native to
the northwest (no, the scrubjay is not a recent arrival from California, in
spite of having the alternate common name "California Jay"), and both are often
referred to as "bluejay".  Steller's Jay favors deep woods, scrubjay open fields
(or in earlier times, the native prairies and savannas of the Willamette and
other interior valleys).  Henry

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