1883, Goldendale WA: From the faithful Lucy (a drag queen)
How is today’s writer like sweet Betseyannspikes?
Well my friend, this was probably a heterosexual White male, not only “playing Indian” but effectively in drag, too.
“The Faithful Lucy” wrote in Chinuk Wawa to signal a “Native” identity, as a number of other pseudonymous newspaper correspondents in the Pacific Northwest did in frontier times.
I had a hunch that this language and her name were chosen to refer to the persistent PNW folk rumors that Ulysses Simpson Grant (connoted by the dateline “Grant’s Station / Grant Station / Grant”, Oregon) had had a Native wife during his Army time out here, who he had “dumped” when it was time to return East.
However, the town of Grant was in fact named for a William Grant of The Dalles.
Maybe “the faithful Lucy” is a literary reference to James Fenimore Cooper’s 1844 novel “Afloat and Ashore: A Sea Tale“?
(Not terribly relevant to add, but our “Lucy” also sounds kind of Brazilian as well, with her repeated use of wake (wík ‘not’) at both the start and end of a single clause. Lucy does this even when it doesn’t make sense, as when the first wake is actually part of the fixed expression wake siah ‘almost’!)asa mercer
I’m grateful for the old custom of newspaper “exchanges”. As I recently read in a very good biography of Asa Mercer, publishers used to swap subscriptions, making it possible for a paper in a tiny town to receive a steady supply of news that it could publish without the added cost of paying a reporter. (I know how bad this sounds nowadays!) In the present instance, I think we might not otherwise have any access to the Goldendale (WA) Klickitat Sentinel via my usual research tools, the Library of Congress and the Washington Secretary of State’s website.
Here’s the item of interest from south-central Washington, as republished on the Oregon coast:
From the Faithful Lucy.
We clip the following bit of elegant literature from the Klickitat Sentinel:
GRANT’T ILLAHEE, STOTEKIN SUN,
ICT COLD,CLAHIAH Six — Nika tikey wawa mika paper caqua. Ict sun hiu hias tyhee Boston man chaco copa Grant Station. Elip charco yaka hias close man, yaka Boston namen Henry Villard. Hias close man yaka. Wake siah cawqua Sahila tyhee, wake. Nika tum tum yaka delate caqua(;) nowitka. Yaka ow [brother] copa Sahila tyhee [The Creator] Nowitka, nika tum tum delate caqua. Hyu Boston man wawa caqua. Yaka hias tyhee hias close, yaka wake cleminiwhit copa Cascade lkocs; wake. Yaka hyas ticky Cascade locks; nowitka. Yaka wake capswalla hiu illahee; wake. Yaka wake cultus mamook railroad enati Columbia, copa Washington Territory illahee; wake. Quonesam yaka close wawa “Yaka hias close man.” Spose nike mimoloose nika wake ticky clatawa copa sahila illahee; wake. Nika ticky clatawa copa Henry Villard; nowitka. Caqua nika tum tum.
Alka wah nika wawa
Close clahiya,
Mika Tilacum.
FAITHFUL LUCY.
— from the Corvallis (OR) Gazette-Times of September 21, 1883, page 3, column 3
A closer examination of the Chinuk Wawa there…
GRANT’T ILLAHEE, STOTEKIN SUN,
grǽnts* ílihi, stúxtkin sán,
Grant’s place, eight day,
ICT COLD,
íxt kʰúl, [1]
one winter,
CLAHIAH Six — Nika tikey wawa mika paper caqua. Ict sun hiu hias tyhee Boston man chaco
ɬax̣áya síks — nayka tíki wáwa mayka pípa kákwa. íxt sán háyú háyás táyí bástən mán cháku
hello friend — I want talk your paper this.way. one day many big chief American man come
copa Grant Station. Elip charco yaka hias close man, yaka Boston namen Henry Villard.
kʰupa grǽnt* stéyshən*. íləp cháku yaka(,) [2] hayas-ɬúsh mán, yaka bástən-ním hénri* vilard*.
to Grant Station. first come he(?)(,) very-good man, his American-name Henry Villard.
Hias close man yaka. Wake siah cawqua Sahila tyhee, wake. Nika tum tum yaka
hayas-ɬúsh mán yaka. wík-sáyá kákwa sáx̣ali-táyí, wík. [3] nayka tə́mtəm yaka
very-good man he. not-far like above-chief, not. I think he
delate caqua(;) nowitka. Yaka ow [brother] copa Sahila tyhee [The Creator] Nowitka, nika
dléyt kákwa(;) nawítka. yaka áw [4] kʰupa sáx̣ali-táyí. nawítka, nayka
really like.that; yes. he brother to above-chief. yes, I
tum tum delate caqua. Hyu Boston man wawa caqua. Yaka hias tyhee hias close,
tə́mtəm dléyt kákwa. háyú bástən mán wáwa kákwa. yaka háyás táyí(,) hayas-ɬúsh,
think really like.that. many American man say like.that. he big chief(,) very-good,
yaka wake cleminiwhit copa Cascade lkocs; wake. Yaka hyas ticky Cascade locks;
yaka wík t’ɬəmínxwət kʰupa [5] kʰǽskeyd* láks*; wík. yaka hayas-tíki kʰǽskeyd* láks*;
he not tell.lies about Cascade Locks; no. he very-want Cascade Locks;
nowitka. Yaka wake capswalla hiu illahee; wake. Yaka wake cultus mamook
nawítka. yaka wík kapshwála háyú ílihi; wík. yaka wík kʰə́ltəs mámuk
yes. he not steal much land; no. he not idly make
railroad enati Columbia, copa Washington Territory illahee; wake. Quonesam yaka
réylrod* ínatay kʰələ́mbiya*, kʰupa wáshingtən* teritori* ílihi; wík. kwánsəm yaka [6]
railroad across Columbia, to Washington Territory lnad; no. always he
close wawa “Yaka hias close man.” Spose nike mimoloose nika wake ticky clatawa
ɬúsh wáwa “yaka hayas-ɬúsh mán.” spus nayka míməlus nayka wík tíki ɬátwa
well say “he very-good man.” if I die I not want go
copa sahila illahee; wake. Nika ticky clatawa copa Henry Villard; nowitka. Caqua nika tum tum.
kʰupa sáx̣ali-ílihi; wík. nayka tíki ɬátwa kʰupa hénri* vilard*; nawítka. kákwa nayka tə́mtəm.
to above-land; no. I want go to Henry Villard; yes. like.that I think.
Alka wah nika wawa
áɬqi wə́x̣t nayka wáwa(.)
eventually more I say.
Close clahiya,
ɬúsh(,) [7] ɬax̣áya,
all right(?) goodbye,
Mika Tilacum.
mayka tílixam.
your friend.
FAITHFUL LUCY.
The footnotes:
íxt kʰúl [1] ‘one winter’ might mean ‘(this) same year’.
íləp cháku yaka(,) [2] hayas-ɬúsh mán: I’ve inserted a suggested comma, in order to make sense of this sequence of words as ‘it’s the first time he’s come here, a very good man…’. Without the comma, the wording reads like ‘first came his really good man…’ and I don’t feel that that makes a ton of sense.
wík-sáyá kákwa sáx̣ali-táyí, wík. [3] Like I said at the start of today’s post, the second wik doesn’t really work here. Because wík-sáyá ‘almost’ is a much more positive than negative expression, I would have expected nawitka at the end of this sentence, as at the end of a couple other sentences here.
áw [4] ‘brother’ evidently needed to be explained to the readers of this central Washington paper in the late frontier era. Maybe the English word ‘brother’ had already crept into local Chinuk Wawa here, as it did around Kamloops at about the same time.
yaka wík t’ɬəmínxwət kʰupa [5] kʰǽskeyd* láks*: I want to call your attention to the mild ambiguity of the preposition kʰupa here. Is “Lucy” saying that Villard doesn’t lie TO (the personified) Cascade Locks, or ABOUT the subject of Cascade Locks? For various reasons, including the fact that these locks on the Columbia River were currently under construction and thus an active topic in the news, I lean towards the ABOUT interpretation. Now, this is my chance to remind folks that it’s often kind of hard to say ABOUT (as in ‘talking about something’) in Chinuk Wawa. Settlers in Oregon and Washington strongly tended to say kʰupa. Farther to the north, in BC, we consistently find the use of the word qʰata (‘how it is’) in this function. It seems to me that non-Settlers in OR & WA may have tended to use more specific wording, that is, e.g. ‘told us Henry Villard is a great guy’ rather than the broader ‘talked about Henry Villard’. Being a question of syntax and pragmatics more than of simple word choice, this needs a good deal of careful research.
kwánsəm yaka [6] ɬúsh wáwa “yaka hayas-ɬúsh mán.” The first yaka seems indeterminate to me. Is it a generic use of the fluent CW plural yaka? (I.e. ‘they say’?) Or is yaka Henry Villard himself claiming to be a good guy?
ɬúsh(,) [7] ɬax̣áya: Here again I’m suggesting a comma was left out. With it, the writer is saying ‘all right, goodbye’. Without it, the two words come across as a strange expression ‘good goodbye’!
My evaluation is
…that this writer’s Chinook Jargon is good and understandable, and it sounds like it was learned from real conversational use. Nobody was accustomed to writing much of anything in CJ, which helps explain why so many texts, like this one, have strange punctuation issues and such.
I would love to track down actual issues of the Goldendale Klickitat Sentinel! They might contain more of the Chinook writing of “Faithful Lucy”. I think the Bancroft Library has this paper, so there’s some hope.
