More humor in Chinuk Wawa: Shake hands and go to hell
This installment is admittedly from the “Chinook Paper” but not directly in Chinook Jargon — read on to see the humor in it, and for a little lesson in Jargon.
During World War 1, a BC Native woman asks for clarification about the use of the English language.
A New Year’s handshake postcard from the same era (image credit: ebay)
From “Kamloops Wawa”, April 1918 No. 2 Special Edition, page 3, an anecdote from “Head Lake, Okanogan” (the Head of the Lake Indian Reserve) —
After Mass we had a general shake hands for the hayy [happy] New Year
at the door of the Church. An old Indian woman would have
said “What does the white man mean when he says. “Same to you”
One says: “Happy New Year. Same to you. Last week I heard
one say in town “Go to Hell”; “Same to you”.
Bonus fact:
That “shake hands” was in fact a Northern-dialect Chinuk Wawa word.
Shik-hantz is a verb that we find a number of times in the pages of “Kamloops Wawa”.
A common synonym for it is the expression we also find in the Southern dialect, iskom lima, which is literally ‘grab hands’.
