Come ‘n’ git it!

Two more of the wonderful want ads placed by Indigenous people in the Sugarcane Bell mini-newspaper (KW #126, March 1895, page 37):

Ad the first:

[written on a picture of a rabbit:] Skukum makmak.
Excellent food.

Drit ayu rabits mitlait kopa Wiams Lik. Pus klaskta tiki
There are really a lot of rabbits at Williams Lake. If anyone likes to

makmak ayu rabits, tlus iaka aiak chako. Alta ayu gris
eat lots of rabbit, he should come right away. Just now

klaska, wik saia klaska mash kanawi gris, klaska chako
they’re nice and fat, soon they’ll lose all the fat, they’ll get

kaltash.
bad.

Ad the second:

Naika nim Mois naika Sawash kopa stik .. Naika aias
My name is Moise [Moses], I’m an Indian from the woods .. I’m really

klahawiam, ayu maws mitlait kopa naika haws, pi klaska kakshit
pitiful, there are lots of mice in my house, and they’ve ruined

kanawi naika iktas. Pus klaksta mitlait skukum pusi tlus iaka
all my things.  If anybody has a fine cat, they should

patlach kopa naika pi naika wawa mirsi kopa iaka.
let me have it and I’ll thank them.

Really nice insights into how people supported themselves during this transitional period between traditional and modern lifeways — what the UVic historian John Sutton Lutz has dubbed the “moditional” economy in his superb book “Makuk: A new history of aboriginal-white relations“.

You’ll be seeing more like them in this space, thanks to the Chinook Jargon newspaper.