intermixing of cultures

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Sun, 20 Jun 1999 22:42:25 -0700, you wrote:

>This discussion has been interesting and reveiling of where some
>listmembers are in terms of understanding Northwest history. I would like
>to write some challenging things which are going to make some angry. But,
>too much I have heard seen and heard discussions about native peoples,
>without them being involved... this reminds me of one of the big problems
>with anthropology and archaeology...

Well, revealing, I presume you mean.  My candor about my fellow
Oregonians' shortcomings and discreetly shared little oversights fall
far short of reviling, I hope...

>Continually I have heard of the stabilization of CJ after white settlement.
>This position needs to be further defended and fully cited in order to
>satisfy my doubts. Of course all recorded CJ is historic, it is the nature
>of how science has divided the time and event line. However, many
>linguists, including Hymes have written that CJ crystallized before white
>contact. I have written on this before. How else can the prevelance of
>Indian words and phonology be accounted for.

I am certain there was a pre-contact Jargon, but considering the
small known vocabulary and scant, late record, it will be a heck of a
challenge to reconstruct it.  It was probably fluid, had many local
variations, and probably changed with the traffic pattern and
ecology/economy over the years.

While some of us have gotten a grip on the KW script, I'd sure love
to see it transliterated into something I can read so it can be more
easily compared to the Oregon-centered printed vocabularies and the
precious few running Jargon texts we have.  The five or six hundred
miles' difference in origin might turn up some clues.

>In Oregon, the native people mixed very well with all other peoples. If you
>look at the details of how many people remained alive from acts of  White
>settler genocide on Indians you will find that of individual bands and
>villages, usually about a dozen people made it to the reservation. And, the
>reservations were built as much to keep the Whites out as keep the Indians
>in. Of course I can not speak for all Indian tribes or reservations in
>Oregon, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Klamath had a somewhat different
>experience than Western Oregon. Cities like Portland and Eugene are what I
>call "bubble communities" in the midst of a sea of racism. What I have
>learned is don't be caught alone off the I-5 corridor or anything can happen.

This is interesting as I just returned from a road trip down the
valley and over the mountains, and as I like to do, made my rest
stops in smaller towns I hadn't seen much of before or lately.  I was
surprised to find that in Roseburg, a town I used to feel familiar
with, after exchanging about three remarks with a local I would be
looked over cooly and then quietly asked, "You're not from around
here, are you?"  In two or three different conversations.

Albany, always a "rough little town" in my mind, looked comparatively
cosmopolitan and welcoming to me in my one night out on the town
there.

>While I am not a CJ speaker, many of my family were and are, we are all
>mixed blood. But why is this an issue? From all I know neighboring people
>intermarried with one another readily in all areas of the world. Indian
>people intermarried with Indian people of other nations all the time. This
>is the same for English, French, Germans etc. The term White seems to refer
>to a political and national stance more than anything else. It is not a
>race to me, how would anyone define it? So my point is mixing and
>intermarriage is not something out of the ordinary. In America it is
>focussed on because of the history of racism and scientific theories of
>racial purity. But who really is racially pure? What does that mean? Is
>purity actually stagnation?

It's not an issue to me, but a matter of genuine historical interest
and social curiosity.  I'm sure the frontier was as friendly as it
was dangerous.  But things shifted quickly with the arrival of
families, however, and the appearance of conventional propriety
became paramount.  Cross-cultural relations certainly continued,
but--at least hereabouts--I'm sure people carefully avoided calling
attention to it.  Mixed marriages didn't always garner epithets, but
still raised eyebrows during my youth.  I was somewhat acquainted
with a couple Native-white families, and I remember being quizzed
about my opinion of it by trolling gossips.

>In Spirit
>David

Regards,

Jeff