1910: Chinook wind in Chinook Jargon (+pidgin English)

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Here’s a rarity.

halo cow

Image credit: Redbubble

I haven’t often seen mention of the “Chinook wind” within Chinook Jargon.

It’s more of an English-language Settler expression, in my experience. 

But here you have somebody in northeast Oregon, who happens to be Indigenous,  talking about that warm westerly wind in a blended Chinuk Wawa-Pidgin English. 

I’ll bold those of his words that we already know to have been used in Chinook Jargon.

Some of them, though (such as byemby & spose), are likewise known in West Coast Chinese Pidgin English, and other pidgin Englishes. 

Here’s how this man was quoted in print: 

wanted chinook

Wanted: One Big “Chinook.”

The Indians have tired of the winter weather and long for the big “chinook.” Their ponies are becoming mere skeletons and unless the snow disappears from the hillsides shortly, their herds will be greatly depleted in numbers. “Mebby so cum hiyu chinook byemby; spose no cum soon, then halo cayuse, halo cow, halo mowitch.” Thus spoke one of the Umatillas yesterday, and the condition of the cayuse he was riding more than verified his statement.

— from the Athena (OR) Press of February 25, 1910, page 4, column 2

I wonder to what extent the reporter dumbed down this man’s Jargon by making it sound more like Chinese Pidgin English.

Why would a reporter (or editor I suppose) do so? This is 20 years into the post-frontier era, so it’s possible relatively few people in Athena, Oregon understood Chinook — the language — terribly well anymore. 

On that point, let me explain that 

  • “hiyu” = ‘lots of’,
  • “halo” = ‘no(ne)’,
  • “cayuse” = ‘pony’, and
  • “mowitch” = ‘deer’.

qʰata mayka təmtəm?
What do you think?

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