More humor in Chinuk Wawa: Southern interior BC — An “old bachelor” cooks for company
So, in early frontier days, these 3 ladies and an “old bachelor” meet up…
(A link to much more humor on my website…)
Today’s little bit of fun is from a French-only issue of “the Chinook paper”, but it’s still a snapshot of life in Chinook Jargon’s heyday…
That’s the Kamloops Wawa of July 1916, No. 264, page 247.
As you can see from the sample shown above, my photocopy of that issue is extremely hard to read. I should say, my photocopy is fine, but the newspaper itself was typed on an old-fashioned mimeograph machine that had seen better days. Numerous individual words are blurred, although I can understand the total story for today.
So anyway, I’ll have to summarize:
Back in those days, there were very few non-Indigenous women in British Columbia.
Settlers in general were few and far between, and most were male.
So three of the even rarer White women, all missing the company of men who spoke their language and might have something in common with them, formed a plan.
They were going to surprise the nearest White fella, an “old bachelor”, with a visit to his cabin.
However, that guy somehow got word of their intention, and got to work boiling a lot of rice, to be able to feed the ladies like a good host.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t a great cook, and mis-estimated how much rice to cook.
It wound up being his entire stock, and he found it took every vessel in his cabin to prepare it all…
…which then meant practically every flat surface in his home was covered in cooked rice, waiting for these three women to show up and yell “Surprise!”
