John Ball

[George Lang]

Since the matter of John Ball has come up , I thought I'd append the
following information from a recent hagiography of Ranald MacDonald, a son
of Concomly (Lewis and Murakami, 1990)

John Ball opened a school in 1832 at Fort Vancouver "for two dozen half-
breed Indian children of the HBC employees.  These children ranged in age
from six to sixteen years and "talked the Cree, Nez Percé, Chinook,
Klickitat and other Indian languages."

In this context one might read "Chinook" to mean Chinook proper, but the
following passage from Ranald MacDonald suggests not:

"I attended the school to learn my A.B.C. and English. The big boys had a
medal put over their necks, if caught speaking French or Chinook, and when
school was out had to remain and learn a task...."

John Ball's job, as he conceived it, was to discourage Wawa. He "dunced"
them.

Interesting to note that Cree was at the head of this list of languages
spoken, also that French was a no-no alongside Wawa.