Blackfeet story
Around the turn of the century, as they used to call 1900, a lot of Indigenous people were recorded as talking a mixture of pidgin English and Chinook Jargon.
Here’s an Okanagan elder who told a pulse-raising anecdote that way:
A GREAT INDIAN BATTLE The Narrator Is So Aged that None Dare Guess in What Year He Was Born. The Boundary section of British Columbia abounds in legendary lore, and of all the stories still told by the old men of the aboriginal tribes around the campfire at night, none is of more tragic interest than one related by Skom-ne-lo, a sage of the Colvilles, whose age no one attempts to guess with any degree of accuracy, and who, when asked concerning this subject, points to an immense pine tree which grows near his lodge and says, in his mixture of broken English and Chinook jargon, "My son, I have seen the time when my friend there and I were the same height, but I was stronger than he, for I could bend him to the ground." I have spent many an hour with the aged Indian, leaning against the pine while we both smoked my tobacco, and listening to his tales of adventure. One night, after he had silently wooed "Lady Nicotine" for upwards of an hour, he laid his pipe aside and said: "My son, I will tell you of the Blackfeet, and of how my tribe, who have always been a peaceable people, defeated the war patty from beyond tho big hills -— we and our father, Toy-e-be. (Toy-e-be is the Indian name for Kettle river.) It was many years ago, before the Hudsons Bay company brought rifles and whisky to us, before the white men came and stole our women, leaving us smallpox and boils in return, before the priests had shown us how to go to hell. The Blackfeet had big hunting grounds off there where the sun rises, but many days' journey from this land. Their men were tall and strong, and their number was as the sand in the bed of Tov-e-be. Seldom did they send a war party so far from home as to reach us, but sometimes a band of their young men would come into the valley, and then we used to fight, yes, we could fight in those days -— before we had whisky and hell —- for had we not our homes to preserve and our women to protect? Blackfeet on Warpath "One time when the leaves had just begun to die, 300 of the Blackfeet braves passed to the north of us through the Kicking Horse pass as far as the O-kan-o-gan. The tribes in the north had no hearts, and the Blackfeet took many scalps, and all the food they wanted, burning the rest. They went through the land as the goose flies, like a wedge, with their strong men in front and on the wings, and their wounded and prisoners in the center. They took enough prisoners only to carry their food, and would torture them when they returned to their own land; but we were merciful and gave them a quicker death. They came down the O-kan-o-gan lakes and across the He-he trail to this river. Then they built canoes and came down toward us. "I was a young man then, and was the fastest runner in my tribe. On that day 1 was hunting mowitch (deer) a long day's journey up the river. 1 saw the Blackfeet in their canoes, and they were singing their war songs and telling how they had vanquished every tribe they had met. But victory had made them over proud and they were careless, I knew they would camp for lhe night before coming to tbe lodges of my tribe, but in the morning what would become of my people? So I ran, and the sun hunted his bed in the salt water no faster than I hunted the lodge of my father. Night came and 1 ran on, for I had eyes in the dark, and the trail sped under my feet with a soft, singing sound. The bushes kissed me in the face and bade me run faster. Ah, the woods were good to me in those days. I stopped only for a moment to bathe my face in the river when I came to a ford, and to drink a little of the cold water. So in the middle of the night I came into my father's lodge and told him what I had seen. My father was chief of the tribe. He told me to waken the men, and while I was gone he sat with his face in his hands, thinking. When I returned with all the men he came out of the lodge, and his eyes shone, making us all glad; for my father was very wise, and we knew that his smile meant death to our enemies and life to us. Dashed to Death. "So in the early morning we were all hid in the bushes by the river in front of Ten-as-ket's lodge, about four hours' journey up the river, and the women had all our canoes waiting about a mile below us. Soon we saw the Blackfeet coming, and they were not singing now, but bending to their paddles and making the river foam. When they came near us we shouted our war cry, and sent our arrows among them like a cloud. Many fell into the water, but the rest paddled to the shore, formed a wedge and charged. Nothing could stand before that terrible wedge, and we ran till we reached our canoes. Then we paddled down the river as fast as we could, while they returned to their canoes and gave chase. You know the place about a day's walk below here, where Toy-e-be has cut a hole through the mountain, where nothing can pass and live, and where even big trees are torn into splinters on the rocks. Well, when we came around the bend at the top of this canyon, we pulled our canoes out of the water and hid them in the bushes. Then we waited. Soon the Blackfeet came along, their canoes leaping from the water, so earnest were they in their determination to come up with US. If they had not been blinded by anger they would have seen the water on the rocks where we lifted our canoes out, but they saw nothing, neither did they hear the roar of Toy-e-be as he tore through the mountain. When they had all entered the gorge we jumped from the bushes and called them to return. But Toy-e-be had them in his grasp and he is stronger in his wrath than any living thing. For a moment they struggled against the current, and then they disappeared. "We went over the mountains as fast as we could run, to where the river comes out of the gorge, and there, floating around in the whirlpool were bits of canoes, and on the rocks were some of the men, but no one could tell that they had ever borne human shape, for they were like jelly. We pushed them back into the water, and let the river take them down toward the sea. Toy-e- be had killed them, and to Toy-e-be they belonged. We took no scalps, for our father, the river, might be angry if we took from him the credit of the victory. "When the Blackfeet sent out a party to look for their young men we were ready for them, for all the tribes in this land came together, and few Blackfeet ever returned to the land of their fathers. But of this I will speak at another time."
From the Slocan (B.C.) Drill, December 28, 1900, page 3.
(I recognize “Toy-e-be” as the Salish name Skoielpi or sxʷyéłp, etc., from other documents. Does anyone know more about Skom-ne-lo?)