1903, to an Italian polar explorer: Mika cumtux Chinook waw waw?
“Sprechen sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous français? Mika cumtux Chinook waw waw?”
A Pacific NW reporter desperately resorted to Chinook Jargon with a snobbish visiting Italian notable…
Cagni’s Stella Polare in the far north (image credit: Wikipedia)
…Giving us another of the earliest known occurrences in print of the phrase Chinuk wawa!
The Seattle Argus tells an amusing
story of an incident connected with-
the visit a few years ago of Prince Lui-
gi, otherwise Duke D’Abruzzi, cousin
of the present King of Italy. The
prince was on his way to scale Mt. St.
Elias which he successfully negotiated.
The Prince’s aid de camp was [Umberto] deCagni,
now a captain in the Royal Italian Navy
— the same DeCagni who two years
later reached the highest point towards
the North Pole yet achieved by man.A certain well known newspaper man
now employed on one of the local pa-
pers called on the Prince for an inter-
view, but was waylaid by deCagni who
attended to such personal matters for
the Prince. DeCagni scorned to speak
English and asked in Italian the re-
porter’s mission. Seeing that the re-
porter could not comprehendo Italiano
he asked him if he parlez vous Fran-
cais. The newspaper man having no
knowledge of French, the Italian asked
him if he spracken ze Deutche. It be-
gan to become embarrassing for the re-
porter and deCagni viewed him with a
pitiful gaze. Without even smiling the
reporter took a chance and asked:“Mika cumtux chinook waw waw?”
DeCagni looked surprised but shook
his head, after which they proceeded to
talk English to each other and got
along very nicely. But DeCagni, though
plainly curious, did not question the
reporter as to what this Chinook was,
so they exchanged cigarettes and part-
ed friends, and not enemies.
— from the Douglas Island (AK) News of June 17, 1903, page 4, column 1
