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Toppenish, Yakima County, Washington
"Toppenish, a creek
and a town near the central part of Yakima County, derived their
names from the Indian word Qapuishlema, meaning 'people of the trail
coming from the foot of the hill.'...In 1853, Captain George B.
McClellan used a variant of the word by calling part of the creek 'Sahpenis.'...The
same surveyors gave part of the creek the name 'Pisko,' which was
continued by James G. Swan in 1857 and the Surveyor General of
Washington Territory in 1859...The Bureau of American Ethnology says
Pisko means 'river bend' and was the name of a Yakima band living on
the Yakima River between Toppenish and Setass Creeks."
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