Monthly Archive: October, 2019

Circa 1862: Maybe if he’d known Chinook…

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Imagine my delight on finding another example of 1800s supernatural communication that involves Chinuk Wawa!

1870: From Our Warm Springs Correspondent (a tall tale)

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Published letters to the editors of newspapers in earlier days were customarily signed with a pseudonym, to protect the writer’s anonymity…

Quileute’s Chinuk Wawa (and other) traces

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I’ve gradually been looking through linguistic documentation of Indigenous languages that have borrowed Chinook Jargon words, and today I come to Quileute…

Re-evaluating Boas’s 1888 “Chinook Songs” (Part 13, the finale)

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We finish up with two last Chinook Jargon songs, plus a Tlingit mystery bonus.

1873: More about Yaquina Bay war rumors

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Today we’re privileged to be told another version of a Chinuk Wawa conversation between an Oregon (or California) Coast Indian and a Settler woman. 

FREE CHINOOK JARGON LESSONS!

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Here’s how to get ’em…

Suggesting a Salish source for təná

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  Each year, I try to do a post or two on a Halloween theme; I guess today we’re dealing with the “trick” part of “trick or treat!”

1911: “Martha George” doggerel unexpectedly brings us a discovery

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One of these days, and it won’t be long, I’m going to do a public reading drawing from the copious Northwest folk poetry we keep digging up here…

Re-evaluating Boas’s “Chinook Songs” (Part 12)

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As we near the home stretch, we find some serious revisions necessary…

1869: Indian Excitement is the word on the street

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What I love about today’s short-but-sweet note is that it’s so demonstrative…