"Spuzzum" by Laforet & York: An excerpt

[Mike Cleven]

David Robertson wrote:
>
> Lhush chxi-pulakli, shiks,
>
> Ukuk ya chaku k'Imta, na tl'ap khapa ixt bUk lhas munk c'Em yaka Andrea
> Laforet pi Annie Zixtkwu York, "Spuzzum".  (1998, UBC Press.)
>
> p. 78:  "Spuzzum people, many of whom were bilingual in Nlaka'pamuxcin
> [Thompson Salish] and Halkomelem [Fraser Salish], found themselves
> suddenly at a linguistic disadvantage.
>
>         [']Briesta had a little store too.  My dad could just remember.
> He was two years old.  A man came to Briesta and asked for a candle but
> called it 'culten'.  They didn't know what he wanted.  They brought
> everything down from the shelves, till finally my father said 'candle'.
> The Indians used the word culten for candle all the time.  In Indian a
> culten is a deck of cards.
>
>         [']Another old man wanted a pail, so he made all kinds of motions
> with his hands to demonstrate using a pail.  Finally he told Briesta, 'I
> want lhkap.'  He keeps on saying that.  He wants a pail.  But another one
> was real smart.  An old man came in and said, 'I know the word in English..
> It's lapot.'  Briesta says 'Holaporte means "hurry up," and I won't hyak
> for nobody.'  The old man meant lapot.  The old chief used to like to go
> to the store when he was little to watch the old people buying things.  A
> woman, she washes some gold, and she says, 'I'm going over to Briesta to
> get some soap.'  She didn't know the English word and said 'pashem' for
> 'washem'.  The old chief said, "That doesn't sound very good, what you're
> saying.  I think you mean 'washem'.  He'd figured out she meant soap.
>
>         [']And then they all learned to speak Chinook.  Ed Barry's
> grandfather taught them.  They didn't have much trouble then.[']"
>
> Priceless!


More than!  No lexicographer picked it up over the last century, but I'd
have to say that "holaporte" looks very French.  I'm trying to think of
the source phrase.  It's not "ho! - the door" as it might be; I think
there's a consonant change there; have to think about it.  Sounds like a
workman's=type command word like mahsh or cooley.  "Au la bord?" maybe -
"get on board" which would have been said in a "do it now!" manner,
hence the confusion with "hurry".  Doesn't "Au d'abord"  mean something
like "you first?"  I know there are more adept francophones on this list
than me; what does "holaporte!" sound like to you guys, if it might be a
French phrase.

This item you've submitted makes me wonder what our awareness of the
Jargon had looked like if the Shaw and so forth had travelled at the
community level through the Fraser Canyon as well as the Puget
Sound-Columbia, which is the region I think reflected in their Jargon
publications.  The Fraser Canyon would have been one of the more
important centres of the Jargon in BC originally, long before the Oblate
missions began; I think you've all seen the A.C. Anderson wordlist on my
site, haven't you?  (http://members.home.net/skookum/anderson.html)
That was just gathered in passing; makes me wonder how much else there
was as spoken by the peoples of the canyon.  Your quote above has all
the ring of the Fraser Canyon "dialect" of English, and the locality
words like "washem" for soap surely must be considered as of kindred
origin to the Jargon; although that's exactly what I'd say these words
you've found are!  Makes me more than ever want to get at the Lillooet
Nation Chinook Jargon tape archives.....I strongly suspect that in
various regions of BC, there were "full-fleshed" more language-type
versions of the Jargon similar to Grand Ronde in their more-complexity.
I'd also suggest that it appears that there were some older Jargon
words, including loan-words, than were around by the time the Oblates
got busy.....  "lapot" here is also an aberration, wake nah?  It's
usually "door", yes?

I wonder about the association between candles and cards.....oh, what
else?  You have to be able to see the cards, right?

Hmmm.  I was going to drive up the canyon next week to take some pics;
I'm acquainted with the curator of the Siska museum; maybe she has some
other resources on the Jargon as it was in the Canyon, where itwas
widely spoken and remained current among elders and pioneer-generation
non-natives until the 1960s (hence, in part, my awareness of it when I
was young, Barbara take note).

Anyone recognize "lhkap"?  Is it Nlaka'pamux or Halqemeylem?