NSFW! Valuable 1880’s BC naughty Chinook: The diaries of young Lou G Hare
THIS IS INCREDIBLE. I meant to headline this as just “valuable”, but the “naughty” parts are in fact an exquisitely rare find. NSFW, nor for minors!
Huge appreciation to John Frost for transcribing The Diaries of Lou G Hare from the Lou G. Hare Papers in Yale University’s Collection of Western Americana, at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
There are mistakes in Frost’s transcription, mostly in the Chinook Jargon parts, so I can provide the service of correcting those & some of the translations of them. Frost’s unfamiliarity with Chinook has the beneficial effect of preventing him from altering these words or mistaking their meanings, as so many other folks have done with old manuscript material.
Relevant cartoon, although it’s from 1929 (image credit: Granger)
Young Lou G. Hare’s late-frontier diaries from British Columbia include not only cussin’, which I’ve been tryin’ to teach y’all was a common companion of Chinookin’, but also sexy stuff. There’s plenty of talk of brothels and such, plus some indications of Pidgin English and lovely California Spanish slang from his hometown area.
Here, I’m focusing on Lou Hare’s Chinook (which is written in his own invented spellings, which shows it’s for real), but you’re a fool if you don’t go read his entire diaries!
(Here’s a biography of him. I think it’s for a planned published edition of the diaries. Lou lived from 1866 to 1921.)
Lou wrote from the vicinity of Granite Creek (now Coalmont, in the Similkameen area), which at the time was BC’s 3rd-largest town, can you believe it! Of course that’s a distinction that many different places held in quick succession back then.
We’re told that Lou had dreams of becoming a writer, which surely helps explain why a mere working-class teenager wound up keeping such a spectacularly detailed, unfiltered account of what he saw on the frontier. He reminds me of all sorts of bohemians; Samuel Pepys, late 19th-century France, the Beats and the punk rockers come to mind.
Onward to Lou Hare’s own words now. New discoveries here are in red.
He was in Kamloops in October of 1885 when he heard glowing reports from an acquaintance, “Hines”, of the possibilities of fortune in the Similkameen to the south, as gold had just been discovered there.
October 15, 1885: “Johnny got back from up the river today with his horses; he has a very fine bay mare of his own & he traded with a Siwash his rifle & some boot[s] for a pinto cayuse with a very sore back.”
(Siwash = ‘Indigenous person, usually male when a White person was talking’; cayuse = ‘pony’.)
On October 18, 1885, Lou mentions acquaintances riding in a wagon driven by “Louis, the Siwash chief of the Kamloops Indians”; that’s the well-known leader who later wrote & read Chinook-Peipa.
Lou talks much of “Siwashes”. He incidentally tells us about other people who we know from the pages of Kamloops Wawa, such as the hotel owner Ed O’Rourke, Alexander Coutlie, Tom Rabbit, and the Allison family. Also Lou corroborates the significant presence of Mexican cowboys, who left a mark on BC Chinook Jargon and Indigenous languages, and of Chinese immigrants, African-Americans, and “Frenchmen” i.e. Métis/French-Canadians. You’ll also find lots of folksy English expressions from that time, such as “tail holt”, a “go-devil”, and “patting juba”.
October 22, 1885: Lou mentions “a lot of old tilly coms that I used to know on the R.R.”.
(Tilly coms = ‘friends’.)
November 6, 1885: “Worked for Rory Campbell hauling logs for the Skokum House.”
(Skokum House = ‘jail’.)
January 28, 1886: “…had a kind of Chinook wind today…”
The Chinese population fed everyone Chinese food & got them drunk, for Chinese New Year.
March 13, 1886: “Cooked breakfast in the cabin & then took a “Kloshe nanetch” of the adjacent stakes…”
(Kloshe nanetch = ‘a good look (at)’.)
April 1, 1886: A new song Lou and his mining partners have composed in English to the tune of “Green Mossy Banks of Lee” includes the slang word “jawbone” (‘credit’), which we also know as ja-bon from Northern Chinook Jargon. Lou uses the word elsewhere, too.
April 2, 1886: “…I overtook a couple of miners named Col. Thompson & Jno [John] Allen; they were “Chee Chacko‘s” & I showed them up the trail…”
(Chee Chacko = ‘newcomer’.)
May 17, 1886: “Bob Lunney & I took a walk after supper; took in a camp of clooches & laid around there a while smoking & talking Chinook.” The word clooch gets used again after this.
(Clooch = ‘woman, usually Indigenous when a White person was talking’; shortened from tloochman ‘woman’.)
May 24, 1886: at a drunken dance, “…Bob Lunney was feeling Skookum too.” Very drunk, that is!
(Skookum = ‘very good’ when a Settler was talking.)
On July 4, 1886, “every American in camp” fired off their guns to celebrate US Independence Day, and this is a reminder to us that Chinook Jargon was still largely spoken in places in BC where lots of folks from the other side of the border were trying to make a fortune.
July 31, 1886: “Two clooches came riding in from Nicola; they were pretty well togged up; came riding up to my place & asked me in Chinook what kind of a house I had; I told them whisky house; that was enough for them; they tied their horses along side & came in & ginned up; I sold them a flask; then they started for Granite…”
(Whisky house is a valid Chinook Jargon phrase; recall that whisky is any liquor in CJ.)
The actual Jargon word — August 1, 1886: “We heard a hell of a pow wow & went over (Billy Burnett) & I to the Siwash camp by the slaughter house to see what was the matter; a young cloochman evidently sick (for she was pale & wasted) was sitting on some blankets in a tent; outside was an old Siwash medicine man, curing her…His cloochman was sitting close by a fire fixing soap olallie cakes & while she was working she explained to me in Chinook that the old lad was a doctor & had medicine down fine; soap olallie cakes or mats are quite an institution themselves; the soap olallie is a kind of current [currant] that grows wild & is bitter as hell…[A detailed description of its preparation follows.] There are also lots of black olalie around; these they dry like currants…the Siwash has got him muck a muck around Otter flats. EVE[NING] — I went over to the rancheria & made an engagement with ict Seahost Susan to stop oopah mika okuk jola klie. She chacko‘d.”
(Cloochman = ‘woman’. Soap olallie = ‘soapberry, foamberry, “Indian ice cream” ‘. Doctor is a CJ term for an Indigenous curer. Muck a muck = ‘food’. Ict Seahost Susan = ‘One-Eyed Susan’. Stop copah nika okuk polaklie [in my corrected spelling] = ‘stay with me tonight’.)
August 2, 1886: “Susan clatawa tin as sun he nika potlach yaka ict dolla nika puck yacta lackit times.”
(Clatawa tin as sun pe nika potlach yaka ict dolla(;) nika puck yaka lackit times = ‘left in the morning and I gave her a dollar; I fucked her four times.’)
August 3, 1886: “EVE — Made da[t]e with Susan. Mr. & Mrs. Jensen were sitting in front of their house opposite mine in eve when Susan came along in moccasins and walked in right before them. I told her Yaka to clatawa tin as yawa pie by unbye kilafie he chako nika hin sheru halo tikey okuk white cloochmananetch. [DDR: NIKA HIU SHEM?] She did so; I went outside & laid down on bench, & then went over to Chartres’ for a fluid finality & returned & went around back & found her by the workbench, & we waited a while till Mrs. J went inside & then we did same.”
(Yaka = ‘her’. Clatawa tin as yawa pie by unbye kilapie pe chako nika hiu shem halo tikey okuk white cloochman nanetch = ‘to go over there a little ways and come back later and I was awful embarrassed, not wanting that White lady to see.’)
August 19, 1886: Lou graces us with sickeningly detailed descriptions of what he takes to be either “diarrhea or Jules“, the latter I take as “the French affliction” (syphilis).
August 22, 1886: “Put a flask in my pocked & went down to see old Tar Heel; Oliver happened along about the same time & we tried to freeze each other out; finally we compromised it; she agreed to: chako copah mika house okuk polaklie & Oliver puck um alta & clatawarped. But she hels chako okook jolaklie,…”
(Chako copah nika house okuk polaklie = ‘to come to my house tonight’. Oliver puck um alta = ‘Oliver would fuck her now.’ & clatawarhed* = ‘and (she) left.’ Helo chako okook polaklie = ‘didn’t come here tonight.’)
August 23, 1886: “The Flat was startled by old Tar Heel coming flying down from the rancheria as mad as a wet hen & cackling Siwash at a great rate; Mrs. Jenson was the only person in sight & Tar Heel made a break for her & unburdened her heart to her in Chinook, showing a great rent in her dress that exposed her bare legs from the ankle up to ____; Mrs. Jenson not being able to understand, she ran down to Rabbit’s store; Rabbit was not at home & his packer, who was in charge not being able to talk Chinook, sent her down to my place; Nesland, another packer of Rabbit’s, was with me; she told us that her old man was drunk & raving & she was afraid he would kill the papoose & that no other Siwashes were around; she wanted us to iskum (get) lope (rope) he (&) mamnook (do or work) kow (tie); So we went down there & found everything all quiet; there were a lot of Siwashes loafing around taking things easy; the papoose didn’t seem a dam bit “quash;” the old Siwash himself was sitting down eating supper, looking stupid, but didn’t seem to be on the war path; it seems the old lad was down to Granite today & fell in with Crazy Sally & Blind Eyed Susan & they got him drunk, & he wanted “tenas moosone” & they declined; he got a club & hit Sally & I guess the old tar heel was jealous & mad, & tackled the old lad on his return with a Siwash curtain lecture, & came out loser. About dark I was sitting in front of my house when along came Blind Eyed Susan on horseback, leading Crazy Sally’s empty horse; she was very glad to see me; stopped & dismounted; but I told her to “clatawah tin as siah, pe kilapie” which she did, & …… I ginned her up & she said there was a Siwash waiting for her; she told me that she & Sally left Granite together drunk, & Sally got lost & Susan found her horse & couldn’t find her so she came back on alone to get a Siwash to go & help her ….. Before leaving she took off her outside dress & left it with me; also all her brass jewelry & ribbons & silk handkerchief & her purse with $6.00 in it to keep for her; so I suspect she expects to have a scrap with Sally. She & the Siwash struck out together but later came back without Sally. Susan chackoed Silkum polackere.”
(The blank space might indicate a word that Lou didn’t know in Jargon or was reluctant to write down; the first seems a bit more likely. Papoose = ‘small child’. Iskum lope pe mammook kow = ‘get a rope and tie up [=arrest] (him).’ Quash = ‘scared’. Tenas moosom = ‘sex’. Clatawah tin as siah, pe kilapie = ‘go over there a way, then come back’. Chackoed Sitkum polaclie* = ‘came at midnight’.)
August 25, 1886: “Susan raised hell last night, playing the harmonica & acting “cultos” because I refuse to potlatch two dolla.”
(Cultos = ‘ornery’. Potlatch = ‘to give’. Dolla = ‘dollars’.)
September 14, 1886: “…met Susan on trail; she was returning; said she would chock copah mika house silkum jolaklie”
(Chock copah nika house sitkum polaklie = ‘come to my place at midnight’.)
September 16, 1886: “…the old Siwash that is camped by the slaughter house has a pack train & wants to trade me a horse for my stove, harness, & other ictas; so I tried one of his cayuses, a gray colt that he cracks up very highly…but the cayuse is cultus…”
(Ictas = ‘items; merchandise’.)
September 19, 1886: leaving the town, “…we hauled out the flask & drank “Clow how ya” to Granite…”
(Clow how ya = ‘goodbye’.)
September 20, 1886: traveling now, at the end of the day, “…we rolled in the blankets, played out, & had we not felt so tired we could have got some moosum on our okuks I guess from the number of clooches that were prowling about.”
(Moosum = ‘sex’. Okuks = ‘these things’!)
September 21, 1886: “…as we were leaving a clooch came out & wanted to sell us “skin pants” ”
(Skin pants is a valid Northern CJ phrase for ‘buckskin pants’.)
On the US side of the border, September 25, 1886: “…about 2 p.m. we reached “Chief Tonasket’s” Ranch…we had to talk with him in Chinook…”
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?
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