Note 9 — INTRODUCTION.

Tsús-kai or Tsó-is-kai is the name given by the Navahoes to a prominent conical hill rising 8,800 feet above sea-level, in northwestern New Mexico, about twenty-six miles north of Defiance Station on the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. It is called Chusca Knoll, Chusca Peak, and Choiskai Peak by geographers. It rises abruptly four hundred feet or more above the level of the neighboring ridge, is visible at a great distance from the south (but not from the north), and forms a prominent landmark. The Navahoes limit the name Tsúskai to this knoll, but the Mexicans, and following them the Americans, apply the name in different forms (Chusca Mountains, Sierra de Chusca, Chuska, Chuskai, Tchuskai, etc.) to the whole mountain mass from which the knoll rises. The name, not accurately translated, contains the words for spruce (tso) and white (kai).