U.E. Fries "From Copenhagen to Okanogan"

[David Robertson]

1951.  Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton.

This is the reminiscences of an eastern Washington state homesteader who 
immigrated from Denmark in the 1880s.  

His personality seems to have been pretty tolerant and warm, as his 
numerous remarks about Indian and Black friends show.  One result is that 
he records what look like numerous unusually accurate renditions of Native 
people's CJ.  

A simple example will do, for now.  He has Okanogan-area Salish people 
often beginning sentences with "pe" ("and").  Even when they're not 
referring to a previous part of the conversation.  

This immediately stands out, for me, as identical to how their southern BC 
Salish neighbors phrased their CJ in the shorthand letters.  

Before Fries, I'd never come across a White person's recording of Indian CJ 
that would give you a clue that Salish people talked this way.  Not even 
Father Le Jeune ever conveyed this.  (In fact Le Jeune edited such features 
out of Indians' CJ letters when he published them in Kamloops Wawa.)

The Okanogan, a.k.a. Okanagan, region is unusually rich in documentation of 
CJ by people who used it at the time.  Can you imagine, I've found other 
settlers' reminiscences of some of the exact same Indian people such as 
Tonasket, Cultus Jim, and Kokshut George, where these folks appear to be 
talking a CJ identical to what Whites would write to each other in the 
letters we've seen.

Now that's a fine how-do-you-do.

--Dave R

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