The Chahco-Hyler (!) group of Campfire Girls

By November 24, 1921, the Portland Oregonian was reporting on the activities of a Chahco-Hyler, or its non-typo’ed version, the Chahco Hyas Group of the Campfire Girls.

In the context, I take the name to have been intended as Chinook Jargon for “growing up”.

(See also the May 28, 1922 Oregon News.)

There was also a Wyeast group, incidentally. That’s a reputedly native name for Mt. Hood, though a definite etymology hasn’t been found for it.

If you click to have a closer look at the newspaper article above, you’ll see numerous groups of local Campfire Girls had “Indian” names.  How many of them do you think were purely made up?