Sewellel / kick-willy / mountain beaver (AHD 4th ed., 2000)

[Alan H. Hartley]

> Are any of these terms in the OED, Alan?

All OED has on MOUNTAIN BEAVER is (s.v. MOUNTAIN): 1885 Riverside Nat.
Hist. (1888) V. 121 This is the..‘Sewellel’ of the aborigines..known
to..trappers as the ‘Boomer’ and ‘*Mountain Beaver’.

Nothing s.v. BOOMER, except that it is an Aus. word for the male of a
large species of kangaroo!

OED s.v. SEWELLEL
[Etym., see quot. 1893.]
A small rodent of the Western coast of the United States, Haplodon
rufus. Called also mountain-beaver.
1814 Lewis & Clarke Trav. Missouri (1815) III. 39 Sewellel is a name
given by the natives to a small animal found in the timbered country on
this coast.
1859 S. F. Baird Mammals N. Amer. 353 Aplodontia leporina, Rich.
Sewellel; Showt’l.
187. Cassell’s Nat. Hist. (1896) III. 97 The sewellel is torpid during
the winter.
1893 Coues in Lewis & Clark’s Exped. III. 861 note, It seems by the
later researches of George Gibbs into the unspellable jargon of the
Columbia River Indians, that ‘sewellel’ is their name for the robes,
mistaken by Captain Lewis for the name of the animal.

I've got:

1806 M. LEWIS Jrnl. 26 Feb. in Jrnls. Lewis & Clark Exped. VI. (1990)
351
Sewelel is the Chinnook and Clatsop name for a small animal found in the
timbered country on this coast. It is more abundant in the neighbourhood
of the great falls and rapids of the Columbia than immediately on the
coast. The natives make great use of the skins of this animal in forming
their robes, which they dress with the fur on them and attatch together
with sinews of the Elk or deer.

[In a note, Gary Moulton, the editor, says "The term "sewelel" is from
Lower Chinookan swalál, "robe of mountain beaver skins," understood as
the animal itself."]

1910 F.W. Hodge Hdbk Amer. Indians II 558
Showtl. A name of a species of rodent (Haplodon rufus) of parts of the
Oregon-British Columbia region, known as the sewellel.., or shavt'l, the
name of this animal in the Nisqualli and closely related Salishan
dialects.

1855 Repts. Railroad to the Pacific (33rd Cong., 2d sess., Senate Exec.
Doc. 78) XII. iii. 100
Aplodontia leporina, Rich. Sewellel...Its name, in the Nisqually
language, is Showt'l, (showhurll, Suckley.)

Alan