WA: Sitkum Siwash, Esq.’s “Yankee Doodle” about the 1859 Pig War in the San Juan Islands

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Pig War! Fun to say!Barely related to Chinook Jargon, except that its author was known as “Sitkum Siwash” (someone calling himself ‘Métis’ in CJ)!

The Sitkum Siwash verses that follow are clearly set to the tune of “Yankee Doodle”, in much the style of appropriation you’ll find in “It Can’t Happen Here“.

Oh, this whole Pig War thing was a minor incident in how the border between Canada and the USA got worked out.

It is too
late in the day to reply that it was “on account
of the outrages and indignities offered to Ameri-
can citizens.” The history of the Pike that
killed the pig that rooted in the ‘tater ground is
now pretty well understood. Some are inclined
to think that political consideritions, having a
very close connection with his, own personal
advancement, were acting upon the mind of the
General; others indignantly deny the soft im-
peachment, and affirm that professional motives
were at the bottom; that he was tired of these
“weak, piping times of peace,”in which the old
soldier could “find no delight to pass away the
time;” in short, that there was fully as much
truth as poetry in the cause assigned by the Bard
of Puget Sound, the renowned Sitkum Siwash —

“Then General Harney came along
With glory all a bilin’; 
Says he, since I have licked the Sioux,
I for a fight am spilin’. 

“If Haro strait should all run dry
And San Rosario follow,
I’m bound to raise a muss, I am,
And beat the British hollow.”

— from the Steilacoom (Washington Territory) Puget Sound Herald of February 3, 1860, page 2, column 2

Next, we need one of you fine readers to make new Yankee Doodle parodies in Jargon! Who’s going to be your target?

ikta mayka chaku-kəmtəks?
Ikta maika chako-kumtuks?
What have you learned?
And can you say it in Jargon?

 

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