William Mason Colvig (1845-1936) and a 1920 “Skookum Potlach” (Xmas) card from Oregon

by
Leo Barker “came upon this by happenstance” regarding a Settler immigrant of 1851 to southwest Oregon:

(Here’s a link to lots more Xmas browsing on my Chinook Jargon website!)

Screenshot 2024-12-23 201112
The above image of a Christmas card is from “Judge” William Mason Colvig: Jack of All Trades, Public Servant, Part 1 – by Carolyn Kingsnorth in the Jacksonville (OR) Review.
Colvig was born in 1845 in Missouri and came to Oregon in 1851, growing up near Canyonville on southwest Oregon’s Umpqua River in the frontier era. He claimed he spoke Chinuk Wawa better than English 🙂
Here’s what the card says, with my interpretations —

Klihium! Nika klose          (ɬax̣áyam, nayka ɬúsh)          ‘Hello, my dear’ 
Kloochman! Nika             (ɬúchmən! nayka)                  ‘lady! I’ 
tikka mika iskum              (tíki mayka ískam)                 ‘hope you get’ 
hiyou ictas okoke             (háyú íktas úkuk)                   ‘lots of things (at) this’ 
Skookum Pot Lach           (skúkum pá(t)lach(.))             ‘wonderful celebration.’
Mika Tumtum                   (mayka tə́mtəm-)                  ‘Your dear’
Tilicum                              (tílixam(,))                              ‘friend,’ 
Wm. M. Colvig                  Wm. M. Colvig                        ‘Wm. M. Colvig’

The catch to my English translation there is, I’m showing you what Colvig must have thought he was saying.

Here’s a more literal display of what he said really means — it should be enough to suggest to you that his Jargon was definitely Settler-style, i.e. more influenced by English and less attentive to the norms of “Chinook” than you’d hear from the average speaker:

‘Hello, my good woman! I hope you pick (and take) lots of property (at) this powerful giveaway. Your heart-friend, Wm. M. Colvig.’

Skookum Pot Lach is a phrase Colvig seems to have made up. So is Tumtum Tilicum.

The whole message is very Settler in mentality, as well. For instance, Colvig almost sounds like he’s metaphorically calling Christmas an Indigenous “potlatch”, only you don’t pick things out for yourself at one of those…

Here’s a link to Part 2 of Kingsnorth’s article about Colvig, who had a legitimately interesting life and sounds like a neat guy to hang out with.
And here’s a link to the Southern Oregon Historical Society catalog entry for the Christmas card I’m featuring today. It was addressed to Miss Alice Hanley, December 22, 1920.
Plenty more about Colvig’s life is at this link.
Bonus fact:
Colvig made up a purely Chinuk Wawa term for ‘Christmas’.
Other, already existing, names for the holiday in Jargon include (from Métis/Canadian French) nowel, lanoel, and (from local English) krismas/klismas.

qʰata mayka təmtəm?
Kata maika tumtum?
What do you think?
And, can you say it in Chinuk Wawa?

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