BC: Misfiled: “new” Chinook hymns + the earliest Stó:lō manuscript
An item at the Royal BC Museum filed as “Journal, Southern BC” ought in fairness to be described better.
It’s a bound item, with gold letters on the front cover: “Censuses / First Communions”.
What would have been its title page carries the added information: “Ceremonies / Accounts / 1867-1895”.
All true, and all of it ought to be in the searchable catalog record of this item. But even more uniquely —
The Indigenous people’s names listed in it can be attached to identifiable communities.
An early page is headed “Récensement fait en janv. 1889”, which means, Census made in Jan. 1889. It tallies Catholic & Protestant populations of tribal Native, Métis & Kanaka (labeled as such), and other people throughout British Columbia.
(One of those places has the Chinuk Wawa name Kaltash Lake, which we now know as Cultus Lake, BC.)
The handwriting in the document looks like it could be an early version of how we know Father JMR Le Jeune of Kamloops Wawa fame wrote.
Along with the census figures and people’s names, starting at Frame 20 there is handwritten Catholic religious material in a definitely Central Coast Salish language from near modern Vancouver, BC.
By the standards of “history = whatever has been written down by Europeans”, this is earlyish Stó:lō, or Stalo as it’s called in the manuscript.
We know this because there’s still lots of /n/ in it not yet changed to the more recent pronunciation /l/:
There are about 40 pages in total of these prayers, hymns, and catechism.
Considering the dates surrounding it in the document, this is with near certainty the very oldest textual material (full, connected sentences) from apparently L1 fluent Indigenous speakers, ever recorded in this language!
In addition, it appears to be the ancestor of JMR Le Jeune’s 1897 shorthand “Stalo Manual“. This all is of incalculable value to communities and to the science of linguistics.
Also, for my present audience, a treasure shows up on Frames 24-25: A Northern Chinook Jargon hymn “Oukouk son ilep tlous“…
…and this “new” discovery is clearly the antecedent of Ookook Son Ilep Tloos (Ukuk Son Ilip Tlus), #12 on page 80 of JMR Le Jeune’s shorthand “Chinook Manual” of the 1890s:
This, too, is priceless, showing that some of the Chinuk Wawa hymns we know in the north are:
- at least a generation older than that published Manual,
- are from a different region than Kamloops,
- and arguably stood the test of time.
𛰅𛱁𛰃𛱂 𛰙𛱁𛱆𛰅𛱁 𛰃𛱄𛰙𛰃𛱄𛰙? qʰáta mayka tə́mtəm?
kata maika tumtum? Qu’en penses-tu?
What do you think?
And can you say it in Chinuk Wawa?
Hey! Teach Yourself northern-dialect Chinook Jargon! It’s FREE!
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