Chinook Wawa pe Alaska Boston Wawa

[David Robertson]

Lush san, shixs,

Regarding whether CJ was used in attempted communication with Inuits and
Aleuts:

1)  I believe it wasn't excluded from such interactions.  In the Klondyke
period, especially, it looks as though Whites sometimes tried any means
possible of talking with the "natives".  CJ was prominent as an available
tool.

2)  Particularly in the Inuit regions, we know that a different jargon was
used.  It was Pidgin Eskimo, also known by a variety of
names--predictably.  This contact language left its mark on Alaskan
English in the form of such words as "mikanini" and "kaukau".  Emanuel
Drechsel has written wonderful stuff about this language, pointing out
among other interesting facts that there's a big component of borrowed
Hawaiian words in Pidgin Eskimo.

3)  Among the Aleut, it's extremely well documented that Russian had a
huge impact, and also that the Aleut language was rather encouraged to the
point that it became a literary language fairly early on.  CJ would have
had little use in such a situation.  BTW, on Mednyj Island a mixed
Aleut-Russian language emerged.

4)  In Tlingit (and Tsimshian?) land, as I understand things, there was
some intermarriage with Russians, and the emergence of a so-called
"creole" social class.  There would have been, here too, substantial
knowlege of both the indigenous language and Russian, obviating a need for
CJ -- until non-Russian whites appeared and began conducting trade
without becoming part of local society.

5)  It is of some certain interest that virtually all CJ guides published
with relation to the Alaska-bound migration of Whites refer to its
usefulness in contact with "Indians".  They rarely if ever mention other
groups, though taking say Jack London, the _Klondike Nugget_, and other
contemporary accounts into consideration, along with a knowledge of
present-day White Alaska, it's clear that "Indians" were understood as
distinct from Aleuts and Eskimos.  Clearly one factor we haven't discussed
yet is the obvious fact that a huge majority of Whites entering Alaska at
that time did so via "Southeast", i.e. the Panhandle.  And that of course
was non-Inuit, non-Aleut territory.

Best,
Dave


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