1878: Remembering the Indian War of 1855-6
Memories of close contact between cultures in the earlier frontier era are just asking to be back-translated into Chinuk Wawa!
Five Mile Creek, Oregon (Image credit: Reddit)
The remembered events happened at Five Mile Creek, upstream of The Dalles, Oregon, so in what I’d take as Kiksht Chinookan, and/or Sahaptin, territory.
This is told almost exclusively in English, but the original words were in Jargon. So think, if you will, what exactly was said by people who are quoted.
(You’ll need to filter out some extraneous racializing comments by the narrator.)
…We remained on this lovely stream
for perhaps a week to allow the wagon
master to complete preparations for the
journey, during which time we were
frequently honored with the presence of
Indian visitors from a village not far
distant. Belonging to our own messwas a young man who prided himself
greatly on the perfection he had at-
tained in the Chinook jargon. Indeed,
so accomplished had be become in that
beautiful language, that not only was
he complete master of the nasals and
gutterals [gutturals] with which it is so profusely
embellished, but he would emit those
sonorous chucks which distinguish the
aboriginal tongues of this coast, with as
much facility and precision, as did the
natives themselves. Nor did the mid-
night oil consumed in pouring over Mc-
Cormick’s Chinook Dictionary [actually written by Father FN Blanchet] prove a
wanton waste, for on every occasion
where this distinguished individual had
an opportunity of displaying his lingual
lore to those who were able to master
its intricacies or perceive its beauties,
he was at once accorded a position in
the estimation of the dusky maids of
the mountains far above the balance of
us. One day some Indian women ap-
peared at the door of our tent and com-
menced an animated conversation with
the young professor. He was interro-
gated by an old crone, who seemed to
have passed three-score years in total
ignorance of the value or use of soap, as
to whether he had yet deigned to bestow
his affections upon an equally worthy
object of the other sex. The accom-
plished youth of course chucked forth
amid a profusion of crimson blushes tothe manifest gratification of his interlo-
cutor, that up to that time his heart was
all his own. She was greatly rejoiced
that so much real worth had not been
secured by one of the cultus clootchmen
of the despised [non-Native] race. “Now see here,”
said she, and her snaky eyes flashed
with earnestness, “here is my daughter,
she is a girl worth your attentions. She
will build your bouse, carry your wood,
cook your ‘muck-a-muck,’ dry your
salmon, hoe in your garden, saddle
your horse when you want to ride out
to steal anything, and in short relieve
you of life’s drudgery, so that you will
have nothing to do but to eat, sleep,
fight, gamble, and drink whisky.
And,” continued she, “if you
should ever get mad or drunk and want
to whip her a little, she’ll not act like a
fool and run off from you, but will only
respect you the more for asserting your
rights as her master. Why,” said she,
and her stubbed lips curled with scorn,
“these lazy Boston women will sit in
the house and allow their masters to
degrade themselves by working, or
even waiting on them, and will not
even allow their husbands to give them
a flogging without raising a fuss and
leaving them.”
The Portland (OR) New Northwest of September 26, 1878, page 4, columns 1-2
