BC, 1899: another eyewitness note on Indigenous folks’ widespread Chinuk Pipa literacy
Here is a really great eyewitness comment indicating what a large number of BC Indigenous people were literate in Chinuk Pipa, the “Chinook Writing”.
From Kamloops Wawa #183 of December 1899, pages 132-133: the Secwépemc people of Chu Chua (a.k.a. “North Thompson” or “St John the Baptist”)…
“are very willing to learn; we had a Chapter of Catechism in 48 questions…which they set to learn very readily. They copied the Questions in their scribbling books. They did the same for a few new hymns…
The newspaper goes on to provide English translations of the hymns mentioned.
In this case, the material was almost certainly in the Secwepemctsín language, and can be expected to match what we find in JMR Le Jeune’s Chinuk Pipa “Shushwap Manual“.
I would add that virtually everyone who could read Secwepemctsín in Chinuk Pipa also understood Chinook Jargon and was a subscriber to the Kamloops Wawa newspaper in CJ.
The entire literacy was oriented around Chinuk Wawa. Only secondarily did folks learn their Salish languages in the same alphabet.
