“Fish house” part 3: it’s so definite

First I wrote about discovering a Heiltsuk word that probably showed how the Chinuk Wawa word — otherwise unknown to us — for “cannery” was fish house.

Then I found backup for the claim that this was loaned into Indigenous languages, when I saw fish house in several Nuuchahnulth dialects.

In the interim, I also found a synonym kanri in Jargon. (The work done there was called mamuk samon, or mamuk samon kopa kan.)

Now I can slam-dunk it, showing you the term fish house actually in use in Chinook:

<7o New Westminster.> Taii Shorsh kopa
C.hilis, iaka mimlus kopa Wisminstir. <X> Iaka klatwa
kanamokst iaka tilikom pus mamuk kopa fish haws pi iawa
iaka tlap skukum sik pi iaka mimlus. Mamuk hilp iaka kopa
styuil.

“7th. New Westminster. Chief George of
Chehalis has died at Westminster. [Sign-of-the-cross symbol.]  He had gone
with his people to work at the canneries and there
he got deathly ill and he died. Help him by
praying.”

That is a heck of a lot of evidence for this previously unknown Chinuk Wawa expression!