1907, Oregon: Russellville (?) news with supposedly “incoherent” Jargon
Is this “Russellville” the modern neighborhood of Montavilla in Portland, Oregon?
Image credit: Village Portland
Here’s a post-frontier bit of Jargon from the general Grand Ronde area, and the good news is, it’s comprehensible.
RUSSELLVILLE.
Klatawa Skukum Elihee Mica Kum-
trix (tux) Waake.No, we don [SIC] not understand any such
incoherent jumbling together of mis-
spelled jargon, but one thing we do
understand and this is that we are
living on a seven tree tops’ higher
eminence than is our contemporary
correspondent from Molalla, and can
see farther than he can in most any
direction, and enjoy the bright, warm,
beautiful sunshine while he is envel-
oped in a sea of fog and can not see
afar off and needs an overcoat to keep
him warm in the middle of the day.
— from the Oregon City (OR) Enterprise of December 6, 1907, page 2, column 1
- Klatawa Skukum Elihee = łátwa (Ø) skúkum ílihi = ‘Go to a nice place.’
- Mica Kumtrix (tux) = mayka kə́mtəks = ‘Do you understand?’
- Waake. = wík = ‘No.’
Notes —
The editor’s spellings differ from those in published dictionaries, which I routinely take as an indicator of someone’s actual personal experience of talking Chinook.
Using the Chinuk Wawa-to-English loan word skukum (skookum) to apparently mean ‘excellent, nice’ is often an indicator of Settler speech.
And the phrase mica kumtrix (tux) (mika kumtux?) is a Settler shibboleth / stereotype of earlier, frontier-era CW.
Waake (wik) is normal for negation in the Southern Dialect of CW.
Folks reading this item in the paper mostly understood it, despite the late date and the editor’s claim of incoherence! Oregon City, a.k.a. “End of the Oregon Trail”, a.k.a. “Urbs civitatis nostrae prima et mater” (English: First and mothertown of our state), was “the first US city west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated”, per Wikipedia. So it had one of the longest histories of Jargon use of any Oregon community.
The original Russellville School was located on the North corner of the wedge at SE 122nd and Stark (and in what is now the street.) https://maps.app.goo.gl/ECaBfcq22UTEKive7 This is a bit over a mile east of Montavilla on the other side of I-205, which I believe was some sort of ditch or wetland area at that time. It’s technically in Portland’s Gateway District now and the Hazelwood neighborhood. There was probably a post office since there’s a major sorting center there now. In 1907 it would have been across the street from Morningside Hospital (https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/31/volunteers-uncover-fate-of-thousands-of-lost-alaskans-sent-to-oregon-mental-hospital-a-century-ago/).
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Naika wawa masi, thank you very much!
Dave Robertson
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