Indians said to be sullex!
And other sarcasm! This many-tiered headline is a fine parody of its own times! And I quote! Complete with snarky Chinuk Wawa borrowings!
Tremendous gold excitement!
in Portland!!
The ‘Times’ out with Two Stirring
Extras!!
Everybody Going–Going–Gone to
the Mines!
Excepting Those Who Stay at Home!
A.V. Wilson, Wells, Fargo & Co.’s Mes-
senger, Kilapied!–Highly Uninteresting
News from Fort Colville!–No News
from the Mines!–Indians said to be
Sullex!–Water thought to be all over
the River-bars!–Dry diggings, per-
haps Overflowed, and perhaps can’t be
Worked till the Rain Sets In!–Will
Probably be ascertained when the Dig-
gings are Discovered!–Probably Good
Mining Somewhere, East of this!–
☞ Nobody Advised either to Go or Stay
at Home!!!
This gem is found in the August 4, 1855 Oregon City Oregon Argus, page 3.
The obligatory notes on its Chinuk Wawa: “kilapied” is k’ilapay (killapie) ‘to return’ used in an English past-tense form. “Sullex” is saliks (sollecks) ‘angry’.
File under humor!
FYI, googling “kilapied” returns an image from the Vancouver (BC) World of July 25, 1898…I’d like to have a closer look at that page, but it’s behind a paywall. Not findable at UBC’s historic-newspapers site.
If you google killapied with two l’s you will also find http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/life/article_6e13f92e-8250-50d0-8613-fbcc401ebd98.html?mode=jqm from Kelowna Courier where a barge called the Skookum killapied en route to Siwash Point. Also reference for James Swan where ‘tumtum had killapied’ means heart had changed. Also in Conquest of Mount McKinley the Yukon Sled killapies but is easy to right. I checked the Vancouver Daily World. 25 July 1898 has two scows at the city dock that kilapied in Burrard Inlet losing the crushed rocks. On 31 August 1898 the Cutch, a steamship active in the Inside Passage ‘turned over a scow that had been kilapied by its load of rock going to one side.
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Nice detective work! Thanks for these extra examples that really show this word was a known quantity in local English!
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