Pit’s Winter
A remarkable document from a Native Chinuk pipa writer. In Kamloops Wawa #152 of May 1897, Father Le Jeune tantalizes us with news of a “curious letter”, apparently illustrated, from Pit N’hinaskret (a.k.a. Pete… Continue reading
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Chinook hymn, or, why songs are hard
When you’re called on to translate Chinuk Wawa stuff, hope for a big job. Epigraphers, people who decipher ancient languages, know this. Champollion was able to crack the code of the Egyptian hieroglyphs… Continue reading
Makeup & toiletries in Chinuk Wawa
I can’t resist sharing another article to be filed under “For the Ladies”. There’s lots of new vocabulary here to add to your dictionaries.* In a long article that, typically for a Christian… Continue reading
Chasing Alexander W. Chase
A nice thing to experience (and it keeps on happening) is to come across someone for the first time, albeit after their passing — and find that they, too, were making notes on… Continue reading
The (Chinook) Marseillaise du whisky
#1 on the Kamloops country chart in the winter of 1897! 70 years before the Beatles retooled the French national anthem for pop use in “All You Need is Love“… Don’t be fooled… Continue reading
Zachariah Mudge
Some interesting bits from a promotional book about unnamed missionaries. No author is named in the volume, but it’s attributed to Zachariah Atwell Mudge, not to be confused with another Pacific NW luminary,… Continue reading
Chinuk man = interpreter
It’s several years since I shared my find of Chinuk man, as the term for “interpreter”, with the then rather smaller Jargon community. This is a word worth making better known, as this linguistics paper… Continue reading
Blue ruin in Chinuk Wawa
Another Chinuk Wawa song! A new word! And shoddy anthropology! It’s easy to gin up a short article today, with material like this footnote from Hubert Howe Bancroft: The missionaries, the women of… Continue reading
Bostonais part 2
(Here is Bostonais part 1.) Yesterday I showed you my idea that Chinuk Wawa boston “American; white person” originates, not straightforwardly in English, but instead in Canadian (Métis) French bostonais. I don’t take as extreme a… Continue reading
Bostonnais, Métis, and revising Chinuk Wawa history
(Part 1.) How old is the famous “Boston men” versus “King George men” distinction in Chinuk Wawa? Countless history books refer to the verbal difference as a fundamental one on the early Pacific Northwest… Continue reading