Mountain Beaver & Jargon & Chehalis & ... ?

[Dave Robertson]

Klahowya, Terry, Theresa, Mike, Dell,

For what it's worth, I'm equally amazed at the existence of this animal -- it's news to me -- and at the speed with which non-Indians learned so many words for it.

It isn't clear to me that any of the Indian synonyms cited were "Chinook Jargon words".  But I'll bet a skadillion dollars that the way the outsiders learned of this animal was through the medium of the Jargon.

This seems to me another swell example of a word or words that may never have been perceived by Indians, or Whites, or anyone else as "Chinook Jargon", but which had significance within the framework of the Jargon.

If it isn't too bold, I suggest that we not pooh-pooh the numerous examples in old travel accounts, etc., of writers claiming that such-and-such an item that isn't found in what we now consider the standard vocabularies of CJ "is the Chinook {Jargon} word for X".  Many of these words must have been widely known in their regions; almost certainly some were used in pidgin or pidgin-like contexts.  I think of the numerous Salishan and other words to be found in early accounts of the Jargon.

Furthermore, there is a worthy idea afoot (George Lang has written a bit about it) that in some cases, early documents of "Chinook Jargon" appear to consist actually of outsiders' adopting entire Chinookan-Proper words in what might be called more accurately a pidgin approximation of Chinookan than the Jargon proper.  (What a convoluted sentence!  Sorry.)

Another idea:  This word <sukwellel> could be one that *was* Jargon, then fell out of currency.  Compare, oh, <sukwallal> (what a handy example), "gun", which in most CJ I've seen is overshadowed by <mEskit>.  Another example of a word that understandably fell out of use in CJ is ~ <k'ElaytEn> "arrow".  These are not any less "real Jargon" for having shown up in very few recorded documents other than vocabularies, i.e. in hardly any recorded sentences, texts, etc.

Dave

terry glavin <transmontanus at gulfislands.com> wrote:
>
> partly inspired by this thread, i'm just about to write my fortnightly
> chronicles column about the beast, also known as a ground bear, two
> subspecies of which exist in british columbia. it's a cat-like, marmot-like,
> wholly unique thing that exists in an evolutionary cul-de-sac. it's a living
> fossil. it's taxonomy's oldest rodent - a contemporary of north american
> camels and sloths.
>
> it does look a bit like a beaver, without a tail. nobody is making this up,
> mike - but give yourself a break: at first i shared your consternation with
> the subject, and i thought i knew a few things about wildlife in the
> rainforest. everybody knows about the spotted owl and the marbled murrelet.
> their glamorous. some people know about the pacific giant salamander, but
> very few people are aware of the boomer. it spends most of its life
> underground, and it tends to come out of its burrow colonies only at night.
> i've found two naturalists in b.c. who have worked on the animal's life
> history and range (limited to an area confined by an
> abbotsford-hedley-merritt triangle).
>
> i'll post my column here when it's done.
>
> cheers.
>
> t
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Mike Cleven <ironmtn at BIGFOOT.COM>
> To: <CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 9:33 PM
> Subject: Re: Mountain Beaver & Jargon & Chehalis & ... ?
>
>
> > "Alan H. Hartley" wrote:
> > >
> > > Bates, Hess & Hilbert's _Lushootseed Dictionary_ (1994) (Puget Sound
> > > Salish) has:
> > >
> > > s^áw'kwL [s-hacek, a-acute, laryngealized w, labialized k, barred ell]
> > > 'mountain beaver'; also recorded as s^aw'L and s^Ew'L [E = schwa]
> >
> > What I'm really not figuring out here is why the term "mountain beaver";
> > don't y'all Yankees and Hiyu Bostons have the word "muskrat" in your
> > vocabulary or am I missing something here?  It would strike me as odd
> > that HBC posts south of what became the 49th would ever confuse real
> > beaver with muskrat; sure they both have smelly tails but the fur
> > quality's quite a bit different IIRC.  What I mean here is you'd think
> > that fur-bearing animal terms would relate more either to HBC usage or
> > to the local argot (eena and nenamooks etc.); where the heck did
> > 'mountain beaver' come from?  East of the Rockies, or is it a NW
> > invention?
> >
> > MC
>
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