Layman, William D. 2002. Native river: The Columbia remembered.

Dave Robertson ddr11 at UVIC.CA
Wed Sep 23 00:27:35 UTC 2009


Pullman: Washington State University.

Page ix: a mention of Bobby Tomanawash, of the Priest Rapids Wanapum people

Page 38:  Skookumchuck Canyon - Crescent BAR

Page 43: in a story recorded by Lucullus V McWhorter, one character is named
Moo-Moos Si naz (Bull Buffalo)

Page 79: White settler Emma Meade's memories of Shil-hoh-saskt, a.k.a.
Silico Saska.  [As phrased the Layman.]  "Silico and his wife Lam-a-i were
fond of visiting Emma and her husband, Dr. Eugene Meade, in their modest log
cabin a few miles up the Entiat.  Conversations at first were awkward,
marked by more silence than talk.  In time, the Meades learned the Chinook
jargon, a combination of native and English languages.  Silico marveled at
Dr. Meade's abilities as a physician.  The relationship between their
families grew through the years, embodying mutual respect and admiration.
[paragraph[]  Those who knew Silico Saska commented on his keen sense of
humor.  One day while ferrying Emma across the river, he spotted a large
dead salmon decaying in the slack water near shore.  He scooped the salmon's
carcass into the canoe and laid it at the startled young woman's feet,
highly amused at her immediate disgust.  Emma asked him what he planned to
do with such a repulsive thing.  Silico replied: 'By, by dry it, mamomuc. 
By by four moon, ketchum snow, cultus tillicums stop nica house. Potlatch
mamomuc.'  She translated this to mean, 'when the next snows came, relatives
whom Silico did not like would come to live off him.  He would give them
porridge made from this rotten fish and they would soon go away.' 
[paragraph]  No one knew Silico's exact age, but many thought him to be
beyond ninety when the Entiat Valley was first settled by whites...Silico
was angered at seeing his lands taken by the flood of new settlers.  He told
Emma, 'Halo Siwash illihe.  Boston man tenass illihe, tenass illihe, tenass
illihe, tenass illihe [pointing with his finger north, east, south and
west], Halo Siwash illihe.'  Translated this meant 'Silico has no land. 
Boston man take a little here, a little there, a little everywhere, till
there isn't any left; no land for the Indians.'  (Many Northwest natives
referred to Americans as 'Bostons,' because numerous Boston trading vessels
had plied coastal waters in the 1790s and early 1800s.)"

Page 84: Wapato John, a Chelan Indian

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