Chinook Jargon in the Interior

[Mike Cleven]

Dave Robertson wrote:
>
> Thanks, Sally, for the note on Montana.
>
> I don't know of, nor do I infer, much knowledge of Chinuk-wawa among Idaho's
> Indian people either.  And it's interesting to read references made a hundred
> years ago to a Kutenai jargon-!  So the eastern border of present-day
> Washington State also serves as the southern leg of a makeshift eastern
> boundary of the Chinook Jargon speech area.
>
> What I think I've seen evidence of so far is some fairly solid knowledge of
> Chinuk-wawa among native people of northeastern Washington (the Salish
> tribes); among the Nez Perce (Chief Joseph's use of Chinook Jargon has been
> recorded); and perhaps sporadically among Sahaptins of the southeast corner
> of the state.

One of the women living in my lowrise (down here from Princeton, the
first Interior town over Manning Pass from the Lower Mainland) turns out
to be half Shoshone, and knew some Jargon (she brought it up) even
though she didn't know the name of the language - mowitch, moolack, and
so on; we didn't get a chance to talk long, and I haven't had a chance
yet to sit down over it like we said we would.  Princeton's actually an
area where the Jargon was current, even recently, as it's part of the
old plateau ranch-mining culture that the southern Interior of BC is
really about despite the more recent prevalence of the forest industry.
Princeton is still a bit old-time BC, all for being a highway town and a
big mining (copper) suburb; thankfully no smelter; as a further aside
anyone driving Highway 3 across southern BC should leave the highway at
Princeton and drive to Tulameen and back via Coalmont, both fascinating
little places, or were;

re the Shoshone: Sally's comments about a perimeter between the Jargon
and Sign Language was interesting, as was the notion (perhaps) that
there might be along that same border area (of the Jargon) that there
were other more localized jargons; Tlingit, Haida, Kutenai and so on.  I
remember long ago one participant in the list (or pre-list) community (I
can't think of her name for the moment) was Ktunaxa (Kutenai), who
mentioned that her people considered the Jargon only a baby-talk of very
limited use, and that it wasn't used much except to talk to non-natives,
if at all.  I think in these outer areas we might guess that its main
utility was in trade, so the more current words would be fewer in
number; life wasn't lived in the Jargon, as it might be in coastal
communities or in certain parts of the Interior.  It sounds like Jargon
was of limited utility in the Cayuse-Salish-Nez Perce-Pend'Oreille
region, although from what I know it was widely known and used in
south(west) and central BC for many years - not in the southeast, I
don't think, about which more below.
>
> That covers the border region.  As for the lands a little more to the West,
> my impression is that the Jargon was known virtually all along the Columbia
> River northward into Canada.  We've seen that knowledge of Chinuk-wawa was
> claimed to be almost universal at Yakama Reservation in the late 1800's; we
> know for sure that people from the mouth of the Columbia up to the
> Klickitats, Wascos and Wishrams spoke it; and again, the Salish territory
> farther up the river was also a place of intense fur-trade activity and of
> cultural contact with non-Indians in general.

When was the last heyday of the fur trade culture in those areas?  The
reason I'm curious is to whether the socioeconomic changes in the shift
from the fur trade to whatever came after might mark a transition in the
usage and usability of the Jargon.  Was there much non-native
settlement/colonization of this region in that period, and was there
much interconnection between natives and non-natives, as there was in
BC?  By the sound of your comment, there was considerable interaction;
but in the Jargon, or in English or in ??  It's interesting from your
other post that this area and the fur trade preserved more
French-intoned prononciations of loanwords, which points to the
dominance of the voyageur tradition in the fur trade and the usages of
the Jargon one could expect to find there.  Fur forts were largely run
by the French, who on a daily basis of course saw a lot more of the
locals than the governor or factor might be on, so it's fairly natural
that their way of delivering the words would become the accustomed
prononciation in the areas where they worked.  My hypothesis on this is
that any French-loan commercial words and navigational/packing terms and
such (incl. horsemanship) that had to do with daily life, whether in
town or in the outcountry, inherited a voyageur-flavoured tone; whereas
the ecclesiastical terms (laplet, leklise, and so on) might well have
been more Belgian-influenced.  Certain words like lejaub and mahsie must
go back to the voyageurs, despite their religious tone.  I've noticed by
the way that "mahsi" when said on Nedaa (a Yukon current affairs show
that turns up on CBC Newsworld ch 26) seems to have a different cadence
to the way I've heard it down here or down in GR; in the Yukon I think
Jargon only flavoured whatever local language you were speaking (if not
English), and mahsi became adopted.  As noted elsewhere (by Dave I
think), I doubt the sourdoughs used much Jargon; only adopting certain
terms; "mahsi" so far as I know isn't part of Yukon English (other than
on CBC).
>
> It shouldn't be any surprise to see a language being diffused along a
> watershed.  That's the rule for any indigenous language of the Northwest, and
> perhaps the most common route of transmission observed throughout the world.

Political geography studies include the relationship between geography
and culture, which of course includes language at an intrinsic level.
Geopolitical theory includes axiomatic principles the the recognition
and importance of key routes in the spread and development of any
cultural feature, including language.  River basins are, true, natural
spreaders of language; in the case of Europe especially they are
dividers of it, often enough.  In mountainous country, though, it's true
that language would spread; as in the ancient world key passes and
routes (the Lower Columbia, the Fraser Canyon, the water routes of the
Coast e.g.) are as important as riparian-defined culture areas.  The
linguistic geography of native BC strongly follows the shape of the
land, with each group in a well-defined geographic space marked out by
mountains, centred on rivers by necessity.  In landscape like this, how
else could it be? It's interesting that along the Fraser there was no
geographic unity, other than the relative prevalence of Salishan
languages (encountering Tsh'ilqotin and Carrier to the northwest and
north eventually) which are fairly diverse and not largely
intercommunicable as far as I know (although
Secwepemc-St'at'imcets-Nlaka'pamux have many common words; I'm not sure
about Okanagan or Sinixt (Lakes).  The Lower Fraser and Georgia Strait
languages are much more closely related. Might there must have been a
"river speech" that united them (other than the Jargon), or were
Kwantlen, Katzie, Chehalis, Musqueam etc. all similar enough to function
between communities?  Halqemeylem and Nlaka'pamux peoples lived
alongside and traded for centuries; but for this which language did they
use, or were their own similar enough to use (before the Jargon came
along).  In the case of the Similkameen-Nicola basins and plateaux, this
was an area of linguistic diversity (Sce'emx, Stuwix and Okanagan) which
became forged into a single community (by Chief Nicholas, Fr. pron.
Nicola), and with good relations to the fur company (the brigade trail
and others passed the territory).  This is the region where in the tale
of "the Wild MacLean Boys" I told here long ago the rebel offspring of
HBC honcho one Donald MacLean attempt to incite in Chinook Chief
Chilliheetza of the Nicolas to join in their rebellion (he declines).

Thinking of this, the lack of linguistic unity along the Fraser is
paralleled by the diversity of the Columbia, isn't it?  The linguistic
map of the Columbia region seems especially complex, pointing not to a
transmission of any Common Tongue (save the Jargon in relatively later
times) but to a competition for a presence along the river, bound in by
the variables of geography etc. such as the Yakima basin, below and
above the Dalles, etc.

> My questions include these:
>
> *How far North along the Columbia watershed did Chinuk-wawa extend?

With this I _can_ help you, at least by way of introduction.  In the
case of the Okanagan (on the Canadian side) and the Boundary Country
(Rock Creek-Grand Forks, roughly), as well as up the Similkameen, Jargon
was well-known, although towards Grand Forks you were more likely to
come across Doukhobour dialects of Russian and English than you were the
Jargon; but that's the southeast about which more in a bit below).  As
far as the Okanagan basin Jargon was probably even more known further
north into Shuswap/Secwepemc territory - Vernon, Salmon Arm, Sicamous,
Chase, all of which are adjacent to the Kamloops demesne of the
diocese's popularization of the Jargon.  There wasn't much more
settlement farther north than that, especially into the Big Bend, which
was (AFAIK) only marginally settled even by natives, especially after
its old Trans-Canada Highway Route was bypassed by the Rogers Pass.  I
don't think you'd have found much Jargon use at all in the upper
Columbia - Golden, Revelstoke, etc. - other than in maybe bastions of
the fur trade, if any, given the importance of the old Yellowhead Pass
route.  The Jargon was widely known in Secwepemc territory and among
whites living in the same area, which stretches from the Shuswap Lake
region and Kamloops region to the Fraser River and to the northern
permeter of the Cariboo.  The Jargon was important to the Chilcotin and
was their main means of speaking with the Lillooet and Shuswap (as Terry
G has noted was important in the forging of a peace between the three
peoples in some pre-colonization) but it doesn't seem like it was as
much in the Carrier territory or beyond.

Terry mentioned a while ago about Jargon speakers in the younger
generation in the Skeena-Bulkley region, which is the heartland of the
Gitksan-Wet'su-we'ten Confederacy, on the one half Tsimshian-speaking
and on the other Carrier (Wet'su-we'ten); the Jargon must have become
useful there, once introduced, as an intertribal language.  I'm curious
I suppose about how the Confederacy worked, linguistically-wise, given
the two social and inherently ceremonial/official languages of each of
the participating chieftaincies.
>
>
> *Did any separate major route of transmission exist, which might for example
> have caused tribes like the northern Interior Salish (Lillooet, Shuswap,
> Thompson) to have learned the Jargon from the people living along the Fraser
> River, much as the Columbia people may have taught each other the language?

See above; sort of.  I don't think this was the main means of the
Jargon's spread into the Fraser, which seems more to have been the gold
rush and, of course, the fur trade. The Annie York quote from Spuzzum
long ago points to an era in which the Jargon was introduced into to
straighten out the variables in local speech (and as in other cases
there was at least a bit of pidgin which the Jargon replaced); although
the Jargon must have lived on there after the gold rush, which I suspect
was a bit more responsible, even, for spreading the Jargon than the fur
trade had been before it.  In any case, it _was_ a major area of
native-nonnative cultural mixing in the very early period of the colony,
and for long since.  It may be that the Jargon had become influential
along the river from the founding of Fort Langley (1820s) but I don't
think it had much role there before that, although certainly it may have
been known or known of.  The Jargon was well-known even in the Chilcotin
by the 1860s, however, as recorded by Lunden Brown in his diaries and
notes on the Chilcotin War.

As a direct geographic answer, the Lillooet, Shuswap and Thompson people
_DO_ live along the Fraser and have always had dealings with their
lower-river cousins.  The secondary transmission routes are in relative
order of importance the "Lakes" route (via Seton, Mt. Currie and
Douglas), the Brigade Trail and other Cascades Passes, including
Manning, and the "wet portage" from Mt. Currie to Squamish (now
Whistler).  Surprisingly, still, there were fairly direct contacts
between the Homalhko and other inlet peoples with the Lillooet and
Chilcotin as well as their immediate neighbours; despite the fierceness
of the topography of the central Coast Mountains.

I'd meant to mention the southeast of the province, which became almost
as overwhelmed by white colonization and even industrialization to the
same degree, almost, as the Lower Mainland or the southeast of Vancouver
Island.  The Sinixt (Lakes) people, the easternmost Salishan people in
BC so far as I know, survive only in Washington State and/or Idaho;
their own valley as well as the many post-colonization towns and
settlements along it) now lay under a huge hydroelectric reservoir; one
of the lost orchard-ranching dales of the BC Interior, among many,
formerly known as the Arrow Lakes.  The Arrow Lake (now singular)
country marks the western boundary of the Kootenay districts (East and
West); Revelstoke marks a northern boundary of the Kootenays, and like
Golden isn't exactly "in" the Kootenays, although their immediately
southward neighbours _are_.  The tale of the colonization of the
Kootenay region was rapid and intense; its population was once much
larger than today, with dozens, even a few hundred, now-abandoned mining
and industrial towns now largely disappeared; it was an intense area of
railway and lake travel and settlement, the native populations there
being almost completely overwhelmed population-wise.  As noted above,
the more likely non-English language you're likely to find is Doukhobour
Russian - or Italian!  Another local subculture is unique, even in
Canada; a concentration of expat Yanks, many of them former peaceniks or
other exiles, who are active in local business and cultural life in the
region; anyone travelling north should check out Nelson, Rossland,
Kaslo, Nakusp and all of what's in-between for a look at a really
diverse local society.  Check out local diner-type cafes for the house
borscht; it's usually great.

I don't know much about the Kutenai people in BC, their numbers etc.
>
> *To borrow from the controversies of the Reagan era, "who knew what when?"
> What seem to be the earliest dates for the presence of CJ knowledge among the
> various Interior peoples in question?  What does this tell us about the
> pattern of spread of the language?

And the rate and reason it acquired any loanwords from Yakima, Klickitat
etc.....

>
> Let me explicitly note that for the moment I'm omitting consideration of the
> transmission of Chinuk-wawa northward along the Pacific Coast.  That will be
> a fine research project also.

Mapping the Jargon.......

MC