1871, BC: Benjamin Baltzly
Thanks to reader Ken Favrholdt for making me aware of this published item from the frontier era of British Columbia!
It’s from the book, “BENJAMIN BALTZLY: Photographs & Journal of an Expedition through British Columbia: 1871” by Andrew Birrell, published by The Coach House Press, Toronto in 1978.
Image credit: AbeBooks
On page 125, we find Baltzly describing the Kamloops Indian Church of that time, and doing something very conventional among writers of that time, focusing on how the Christian “Lord’s Prayer” is enacted locally:
Their version of the Lord’s Prayer is vastly dif-
ferent from the Scriptural. As it is strange and
peculiar I will give it in the Chinook Jargon, or
Indian trade language of the North Pacific
Coast, and also a literal translation:THE LORD’S PRAYER IN CHINOOK.
Nesika papa klaksta mitlite kopa saghalie,
kloshe kopa nesika tumtum Mika nem; kloshe
mika tyee kopa konaway tilikum; kloshe mika
tumtum kopa illahie, kahkwa kopa saghalie.
Potlatch konaway sun nesika muckamuck.
Spose nesika mamook masahchie, wake mika
hyas solleks, pe spose klaksta masahchie kopa
nesika, wake nesika solleks kopa klaska. Mahsh
siah kopa nesika konaway masahchie. KLOSHE
KAHKWA.TRANSLATION.
Our Father who stayeth in the above, good in
our hearts (be) thy name; good thou chief
among all people; good thy will upon earth as
in the above. Give every day our food. If we do
ill, (be) not thou very angry, and if any one evil
towards us, not we angry towards them. Send
away far from us all evil. GOOD SO.
I won’t go into detail about the above prayer text, for the reason that Baltzly is just copying it unattributed — sometimes we call this plagiarism! — from George Gibbs’s well-known 1863 dictionary of Chinook Jargon.
So, unfortunately, we learn little from Baltzly’s presence at Kamloops at a really interesting time in history. Dang it. Now I want to have a look through the rest of his book, because I feel sure he must quote some actual Jargon…
There are quite a number of known translations of the same prayer into Chinuk Wawa. Click that link if ya wanna shop around!
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!
And join free Zoom sessions…currently Sundays @ 9AM!
Contact me for the Zoom link.
