1891, Atna territory, Alaska: In an Indian village
The Copper River people, a.k.a. Atna Athabaskans (Dene), were just about the farthest northwesterly folks to have used Chinuk Wawa.
They and their coastal neighbors, the Eyaks, learned the Jargon relatively late, when the English language was also a major element of intercultural contact.
Image source: Alaska Native Language Center
That’s really a general pattern that we find with Northern-Dialect Chinook Jargon:
Plotting along an X axis and a Y axis, of passing years and increasing distance north of the Columbia River, we see ever more influence from English (often looking like pidginized English) in CJ.
Today’s news clipping is datelined “Taval”, a misspelling of the well-known Lower Atna village name, Taral, also known as Chitina. Also to be noted is that it’s dated the summer of 1891, but published the following year.
Schwatka (image credit: Wikipedia)
The correspondent is retired US Army Lieutenant Frederick Gustavus Schwatka (1849-1892), an 1859 emigrant from Illinois to Salem, Oregon (therefore his Chinuk Wawa must have been comparable or identical with that of Grand Ronde at the time!), who was famous for his explorations of the North and of Mexico.
I’ll reproduce a drawing, and Schwatka’s comments about the presence of Chinook Jargon among the Atnas.
His astonishment that they knew this language reinforces our understanding that this was indeed very far north & west to hear it used.
And his account of what was talked about is reliable, considering his presumable knowledge of Jargon since his childhood in frontier Oregon, where the language was as commonly known as English was.
Atna crew. Nicolai’s house.
I was
greatly surprised to find that Nicolai
spoke Chinook well enough to get
along with him. This jargon I had be-
lieved from my former experience on
the Pacific coast did not extend above
Southeastern Alaska. Nicolai told us
he expected to assemble a party of
Indian fur traders in a week to ten
days and descend the Copper river to
the trading stations near its mouth,
and that we could join the party. We
now saw that if we had packed out we
would have been too late to take ad-
vantage of this, the last chance of the
year for native help to assist us to the
coast. A little discussion disclosed he
was willing to start a little earlier if
he could get his scattered party to-
gether, and runners were sent out for
that purpose. The river was too high,
he claimed to risk it now, as there
were many dangerous rapids ahead in
the canyons that would be greatly im-
proved by a lower stage of water. As
the map showed a number of canyons
ahead it was not hard to believe his
story after our recent experience. We
camped near by the village on a pretty
grassy bank, the doctor and Russell
preferring to sleep out of doors than
in an Indian house with its ylang-
ylang and stepenotis air. They cocked
up the over-turned canvas boat and
used it as a tent while I took up
quarters with Nicolai and chinned
Chinook till far into the night.FREDERICK SCHWATKA,
Commanding New York Ledger Ex-
pedition.
— from the Hailey (ID) Wood River Times of June 17, 1892, page 2, columns 2-3
Bonus fact:
There’s an audio recording of a Chinuk Wawa song sung by an Ahtna/Atna/Copper River man called Nikolai, who just possibly is the person who Schwatka was talking with!
2nd bonus fact:
Today’s find is perhaps the earliest we have of Atnas speaking Chinuk Wawa. I find it fascinatingly relevant that a 1902 Alaska newspaper article reports these Copper River people “could not speak a word of English in 1898“, when the gold rushes reached their territory.
