1874: Idaho Jargon doggerel
“Cowboy poets” had a vogue around the year 2000, as I recall…
But here’s the real deal, frontier-era verse with references to the great nature poets, card-playing, and Chinook Jargon!
[Written for the IDAHO WORLD.]
A PROTEST.
I’m not a poet, but at best
I think right here I will protest
Against this everlasting pest,
That daily grows—
I mean those poets who molest
By rhyming prose.My friend from Centerville has took
The language of the sage Chinook—
Been reading some old Siwash book
On Nom Deplumes; [sic]
Or seen the flashing Tilamook
And aped its tunes.I like the Hiyu Cum Tux style
Of dealing us a friendly smile,
‘Twill come in play after awhile,
If “Nater [sic] capers.
But he can never make his pile
Contributing to papers.I like Joaquin’s vehement glow;
Walt. Whitman’s sharp, sarcastic flow,
And the pleasing “apropos”
Of other bards:
But when our poets rise to show,
I yield the cards.ARION.
Horseshoe Bend, Jan. 24, 1874.
— from the Idaho City (Idaho Territory) Idaho World of February 12, 1874, page 1, column 3
Siwash = Chinuk Wawa’s sawash ‘Native, Indigenous person’.
Hyu Cum Tux = CW’s hayu kəmtəks ‘much-knowing’.
“Nater is a reference I’m not catching yet. Joaquin is Cincinnatus Heine “Joaquin” Miller, the popular “Poet of the Sierras”.
Hello Dave.
So, I assume hayu kəmtəks (hayoo-kumtuks in your new learning alphabet) can be used as an adjective approaching the meaning of “learnèd”, “educated”, “erudite”, or simply “very well informed” or “widely read”, etc.? I am almost certain I do not pick up on all of the irony in this brief poem, or the contemporary references, but I’d like to know more.
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Hi jedjastro, here I take Hyu Cum Tux as ‘much knowing’, that is, ‘knowing a lot; expert’.
As with most of the outdated doggerel that I find and republish here, it’d be a nice term-paper project for a smart student to chase down all the “broken links” (references that we no longer understand)…! Dave R.
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