Rodney Glisan & Army buddies mystify New Yorkers
Portlanders will recognize the name of Glisan.
Military surgeon Rodney Glisan (1827-1890) published his “Journal of Army Life” as a book in 1874, with a good deal of discussion of his six years in the Oregon Indian Wars (1855 to 1861).
Naturally, Glisan learned Chinook Jargon, as was common for soldiers in the Pacific Northwest in that period.
On page 361 he adds to our supply of Civil War-era Jargon “code talker” tales:
Some army friends of mine who had served in Ore-
gon sufficiently long to learn to speak it [Chinook Jargon] with facility,
chanced to meet at the St. Nicholas Hotel, in New-
York, a short while ago, and, in their conversation
with each other, used the jargon altogether, much to
the wonderment of bystanders, who were unable to
guess their nationality.
File this along with the known CJ anecdotes of U.S. Grant, Phil Sheridan, Ed Alexander, and Geo. Pickett.
There’s a little bit more Jargon in Glisan’s book, but the most interesting find in it by far is today’s ipsut wawa.
Not a direct reply, but at some time recently you were talking about Rancherie, or Ranche, and I just came across several references made by an HBC explorer out of Manitoba, referring to the Wetsuwet’en village of Hagwilget as a “Ranche or Village”, in 1833. Thought you might be interested.
Dale, that’s amazingly early for “rancherie”. Just now I checked through historic newspapers of BC, Oregon, California, plus Google books, and I got the sense that this word only caught on in regional English from the 1860’s onward. As a research question I’d ask if the word were added ex post facto, for example in preparing the explorer’s memoirs for publication?
It was Ranche – and there was a fair number of other French words used. I just spent the last twenty minutes looking for the details of the quote, and can’t find it now. I’ll post when I find it.
My mistake, I misread your note as to the specific word. But the general sense of surprise remains — my sense would be that “ranche” and “ranch” caught on later. More research is to be done!