Category Archive: Uncategorized

“He yearns”

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And you think people are mean to presidents nowadays…!

Skookum-wood

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I noticed in the old Pacific Northwest mountain-climbers’ magazine “Mazama” a species scientifically called “Menziesia: glabella, Gray” with a common name given as “skookum-wood”.

Zenk’s Law

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Zenk’s Law. Learn it, my friend, and you will speak better Chinuk Wawa.

Snohomish Indian camp & Chinook Jargon

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We’ve read of various Chinuk Wawa-speaking animals in previous articles on my website, but today we’ve got Lushootseed-understanding dogs among the Snohomish tribe.

Someone who noticed the signs

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We learn some interesting perspectives on southwest Oregon’s history from the memoir “My Sixty Years on the Plains, Trapping, Trading, and Indian Fighting” by William Thomas Hamilton (1822-1908) (New York: Forest and Stream… Continue reading

Earliest female Chinuk Wawa speech? Pre-Grand Ronde

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We may have found the earliest quotation of Chinuk Wawa speech by a female!

Cayuses, scouts, friends: more from Meacham

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Alfred B. Meacham (1826-1882) was chairman of the Modoc Peace Commission who tried to help stop the Modoc Indian War in southern Oregon and northern California.

Everything west of the Rockies is the Coast

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A later-frontier eyewitness explains how Chinuk Wawa was seen by Settlers.

Lexical correspondences between Chinook and Kalapuya

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Leo J. Frachtenberg published a study on three of the Grand Ronde reservation’s traditional tribal languages, investigating whether they might be related to each other way back in time. 

Worship in the ancient form at Grand Ronde

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John Minto IV (1822-1915), English-born Oregon immigrant of 1844 who went on to an illustrious political career, claimed only a rusty grasp of “the Chinook wa-wa” — and that’s why he’s a reliable… Continue reading