Another Nuučaan̓uɬ song with Chinuk Wawa in it
Naika wawa masi kopa Henry Kammler (thanks to Henry Kammler, a linguist who specializes in Nuu-chah-nulth) for pointing out another song in the same collection as the one I shared the other day.
Today I’ll present this other one, song #10 from pages 235-236 in “Songs of the Nootka Indians of Western Vancouver Island” by Helen H. Roberts and Morris Swadesh (Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, Volume 45, Part 3, 1955).
Audio of this song exists from 1910; I figure it’s one of the 4 items labeled as a Kwiikwaathla song at the Canadian Museum of History.
Big Fred, near Alberni, BC, 1914 (image credit: historymuseum.ca)
I see Chinuk Wawa in lines 10-11, do you?
And do you see any more of it? I ask because Henry made an extremely interesting suggestion about some more possible Jargon in there… (I may add that after you have a few days to Comment Below!)
This is a kʷi•kʷa•ɬa song, sung by Big Fred of the c̓iša•ʔatḥ Tribe. (Tseshaht First Nation.)
According to page 224 of the same study, “The kʷi•kʷa•ɬa songs are also informal and supposed to be lively and gay. They are dance songs.”
Elsewhere in the same study, warriors are referred to in connection with it, and John Stonham’s Nuuchahnulth dictionary defines the word kʷi•kʷa•ɬa as “dance a victory dance”.
