Iskit/Secret Island/CJ considered as possible source for placenames

[Mike Cleven]

>From: David Robertson <drobert at TINCAN.TINCAN.ORG>

>LhaXayEm,
>
>It's interesting to see just how "Chinook" is invoked as a possibility for
>the source of many an indigenous-looking Northwest placename.  A few small
>observations:
>
>Many NW placenames and some proper names which look French or English to a
>nonlinguist are actually CJ, but my sense is that these ones are rarely
>suspected of having an origin other than in those European languages.
>
>Many indigenous-looking placenames whose meaning or origin aren't
>immediately apparent seem often to be first suspected of being CJ.
>Predictably, knowledge of any of the numerous and fading indigenous
>languages is very sparse, to the extent that it's quite a rare person who
>knows even the name of a local tribe or its language, let alone whether
>the language is (or was) related to any others in the region.

On a related subject, I've really gotta get at the editors of the Canadian
Encyclopaedia, which was published this year; in their entry on "Chinook"
vis a vis 'the wind', they say it's from an Indian word meaning "snow
eater"; their next entry concerns the Jargon (which I helped contribute to)
which gives the correct origin.  Somebody gotta smack those Albertan upside
the head, huh?  (it's published in Edmonton....)


>
>Most Chinook Jargon placenames on Northwest maps were bestowed by Whites,
>I would guess, if I had to.  Most use a very limited subsection of the
>lexicon of CJ.  Most are easy to quickly spot, identify, and interpret,
>for that reason.  Furthermore (my brother the geographer might have more
>to say on this matter), the CJ names we find in our maps seem to tend to
>reflect Euro-American notions of geography, as well as of race.  Thus we
>have plenty of places called <Ipsoot> /Ipsut/ "hidden", and numerous
>physical features of our landscape labeled <Tatoosh> /tUtush/ "woman's
>breast(s)"--the latter, I presume, being couched in Chinook-as-Indian-talk
>in order to avoid giving offense to White audiences by using such a word
>as "tits".  A small further excursus:  "Tit" appears only to be used in
>Northwest geographical names which have already explicit reference to
>Indians, e.g. "Squaw Tit Hill".

The "Ipsoot Range" near Whistler is pretty obvious, however, and I don't
think anyone expected outsiders to learn the Lil'watl/St'at'imcets
equivalent (as if they'd be taught it!); the peaks of the range are
completely hidden from the lower elevations of the region; you don't even
know it's there until you're "up there"....

MC


>
>There are plenty more observations which could be made on this subject.
>It would be good to present a paper on it at the next geographical names
>board meeting in this region.
>
>Best,
>Dave
>
>
>
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