1901: “Hyas muckamuck” menu

Oregon “Indian War” veterans were connected with Chinook Jargon, quite rightly, in the popular mind — that’s why this dinner that they gave in the nation’s capital has a Chinook menu.

A very different group who deserve publicity in this space (image credit: NAVA)

Menus in Chinook are one of the biggest surprises to me — when I started researching this language, I would never have expected such a genre to exist. There were a number of them!

There are lots of insider jokes to be seen in the following.

Notice how the editor doesn’t translate the menu into English…1901 was quite early in the post-frontier period, and most oldtimer Webfeet knew plenty Jargon.

What I’ve done below is to bold all words that you can find in normal Chinuk Wawa dictionaries.

The remaining ones are mighty interesting…

Hyas Muckamuck.

The tollowing is a copy of the menu of
the dinner given by the Oregon Indian
War Veteran Commission at Washing-
ton, D. C., on the night of February 9th
inst. [i.e. this month]:

MUCKAMUCK WAWAH. [‘food talk’, i.]e. ‘menu’]

Salchuck Netarts [‘sea [à la] Netarts, probably oysters]
Chuck Kullakulla Liplip [‘water bird boiled’, maybe duck]
Pia Salmon pe Wo-chux [‘roast salmon and ?potatotes?’]
Skookum Kokshut Kullakulla. [‘hard-hit bird’ = ???]

TENAS TIPSO ICTAS. [‘little plant things’]

Kokshut Tipso pe Wapato [‘chopped/mashed greens and potato’]
Kamas pe Kowse pe Epaws [‘camas & couse & ???’
Sia Illahee Ollalla pe Wo-cus [‘far-land berries and wocus’]
Hias Close Sapolil [‘very good bread’]
Close Pia Chuck, Ollalla Lum [‘good firewater, berry brandy’]
Skookum Kole Tootoosh. [‘awesome cheese’]

ITLWILLY. [‘meat’]

Che Mowitch [‘fresh deer’]          Glese Itchoot [‘fat bear’]
Oleman Kuitan pe [‘old horse and’]
Karmoox. [‘dog’]

DESSERT.

Tipso Kinapoo pe [‘~grass ??? and’\
Tal-a-pus. [‘coyote’]

— from the The Dalles (OR) Daily Chronicle of February 22, 1922, page 4, column 1

Wo-chux & wo-cus might denote the same thing — water lily seeds. But, I have a strong hunch that virtually none of the products on today’s menu were shipped out from Oregon, and the dinner was probably a standard White folks meat & potatoes array.

Kowse is perhaps more commonly spelled couse — a staple food (Lomatium sp.) in the interior of Oregon and Washington, biscuitroot.

Both wocus (a Klamath word) & kowse (a Sahaptian word) were major trade items, and are known to have been spoken of in Chinook Jargon, despite their absence from published dictionaries.

Epaws is said to be Modoc (related to Klamath) word for a kind of “little potato”, i.e. a native root. I’ll try to research this word.

Kinapoo isn’t yet clear to me either. It strongly resembles inapoo ‘fleas’! It might be associated with the Nez Perce people…?

I made myself a note that says an even better version of this menu is found on the same date in the Mcminnville (OR) Yamhill County Reporter, in an article headlined “Doings of I.W. Veterans”.

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
What have you learned?