Question about a jargon word

[Mike Cleven]

At 05:13 PM 5/27/99 -0700, you wrote:
> Nah sikhs,
>
> Mahsie kopa mesika piahtzum Chinook wawa. Kloshe kloshe.
>
>Do you know of a word "seah," pronounced "see-ah?" I'm wondering whether
it could relate to "seahhost" and "seahpo" and the differently pronounced
"siah" or "siyah," all of which seem to convey something high or far away
including the head or sky. (Someone used this word in an ambiguous way a
few years ago, and I took the meaning to be "long ago" or "far away," not
unlike "siah.") Do you happen to know what the "seah-" element in
"seahhost" and "seahpo" means?  means?
>
> Are you aware of the recent book by the late Charles Lillard, ed. Terry
>Glavin, A Voice Great Within Us: the story of Chinook? New Star Books,
>1998. It's a good read, and includes a long poem in the jargon as well as
>several thoughtful essays.
>
> I like your site and expect to find it useful and interesting.
>
> Klahowya,
> Susan

Glad you like the site; I've been meaning to revise it and otherwise gussy
it up, but I never seem to have the time.

As for any relation between "seah" (I usually spell it "siah") and seahhost
(siaghost) and seahpo (siyapu in some spellings), it may very well be at
some lexical or ideomatic level that escapes easy analysis; I believe their
source languages are quite different, though - siah is from Nootka, If I
recall, and seahpo/siyapu is apparently Sahaptian or Kalapuya; there was
actually a detailed discussion of seahpo's etymology and various usage in
the CHINOOK listserve lately (you can find it at www.linguistlist.org),
including dismissals of its one-time supposedly French origin.  Seahhost
I'm not sure about, but I don't think it's related to the other two.  A
good query for the listserve, though, so I'm including them in the cc. to
my reply.

I actually sold a bunch of copies of Terry's book at last year's Chinook
workshop in Mission, and helped Terry read his Chinook poem at the Essay
Magazine launch in Vancouver in spring '98........I just bought
Bringhurst's "Story as Sharp as a Knife", which looks to be really juicy
and highly recommendable.......