Stinky butts (fwd)

[David Robertson]

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LhaxiyEm, kanawi nayka sixs,

Talki san nayka iskEm ukuk email khapa Linda, dret lhush ukuk!  Yaka
kikwEli....                                    Lhush san, Dave
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 16:27:08 -0800 (PST)
From: Linda Fink <linda at fink.com>
To: David Robertson <drobert at TINCAN.TINCAN.ORG>
Subject: Re: Stinky butts

Klahowya,

I'm not sure how to reply to the list so am replying to, I assume, just you,
Dave. Here in Grand Ronde, the elders who taught (or tried to teach) me
Jargon said that oopooch (opoots) was a word they were not supposed to use
as children, so of course did. Hum oopooch, stinky butt, was the word for
skunk. In Jargon, they told me, there was nothing embarrassing about
breasts, but butts were a great source of giggles and jokes.

I'm enjoying the list (now that the holidays are over and I can read my
email again) but having some difficulty going from the spellings on it to
the spellings I'm familiar with, which were just Eula Petite's
approximations of the Jargon pronunciations.

Linda Fink

At 02:15 AM 12/29/1998 -0800, you wrote:
>Lhush san, Kloshe sun, Tlus son,
>
>Hey, Mike, your message about the kids' teasing song from the Shuswap area
>fascinated me.  That's one of those amazing little facets of culture that
>they don't tell you about in classrooms!  The chant is Salish, though:
>The presence of the characteristic suffix -oops / =ups "tail, butt" is a
>dead giveaway, and the beginning of the sentence looks like the Salish 2nd
>person singular pronoun for "you".  Plus it seems to me that taunting
>folks about their butts' stench is a classic NW Indian tease.  It's come
>to my attention in Spokane Salish, as well as the Chinook Jargon, where
>it's hEm upuc^ / humm opoots as I recall what Tony mentioned once at the
>September gathering.   I've asked for more info on the Salishan list...
>
>Cheers,  Dave
>
>
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>  To learn about subscribing to the SALISHAN or CHINOOK jargon discussion
>   groups, just reply to this  message.  Support Native language studies!
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