Chemuck compendium
Here’s a sampler of occurrences I’ve found of a common frontier-era California pidgin Spanish/English/Chinuk Wawa word for ‘food’…
“Yosemite Indians Making Chemuck”, 1872 (source: WPClipArt)
…It’s “chemuck“, also spelled chemuk, chamuck, shemuck, and so on.
The etymology of it hasn’t been established to my satisfaction. Because chemuck is associated with acorns, it seems safe to start from a hypothesis that it’s originally an Indigenous word. Is it from Miwok? Yokuts? Pomo? Chumash? Shasta? There’s a lot of dictionary searching to be done.
from Indian Terms of the Americas—–
“heep ketchum good chemuck in California“
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“white man no good — he take squaw, and he no give chemuck“
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“Bimeby Bob Whittle he got no halo chemuck in de house“
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“Romance on the Yuba” doggerel poem with glossary!
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“chemuck, composed of pulverised acorns, grass seed and preserved worms“
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“literally loaded with favors in the shape of chemuck“
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“…while regaling themselves with the chemuck presented them…“
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” ‘chemuck,’ blankets and beef“
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“grasshoppers, acorns, and similar ‘chemuck’ “
A place called Chemuck Gulch
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“the prospect of good shemuck“
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“Got any wo-haugh-shemuck in Mericano heaven?”
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