1903: “Capswallow” is again the charge
Smart aleck Eleck!
The Chinook Jargon words for ‘stealing’, ‘woman’, and ‘horse’ are only circumstantially translated here.
Everybody in this Oregon town on the Columbia River understood:
“Capswallow” is again the charge against George Eleck, the smart aleck Indian from Hood River, who in times past has been so popular in police circles and served a year in the pen for the same offense, having before that eloped with another man’s klootchman. This time Eleck stole his mother’s cuitan at Hood River last Sunday and escaped to this city, making the trip up over twenty miles of rough road in threee hours and a half. His mother followed him Tuesday and Sheriff Sexton has been looking for him ever since. Thursday night he found the horse at an East End feed yard, George having disposed of it to a timberman for $15. The Elecks are a civilized family, the parents being well thought of at Hood River; but their son will probably never be a good Indian until he is dead. His whereabouts now are a mystery. — Chronicle.
— from the Hood River (OR) Glacier of May 21, 1903, page 4, columns 2-3
That reference to the racist Settler cliché, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”, was an all-too-common occurrence in the press of the time.
