Jones, Robert F. (ed.) “Annals of Astoria" (1st msg)

[David D. Robertson]

This book has plenty of neat ethnographic data, for you students of the
early CJ situation.  Me, I picked out some linguistic notes to share...more
to come soon!  --  Dave

Jones, Robert F. (ed.)  “Annals of Astoria:  The headquarters log of the
Pacific Fur Company on the Columbia River, 1811-1813.”  New York:  Fordham
University Press, 1999.

LINGUISTIC NOTES:

Page 15-16:  <paroles>:  “…some Indians from near the Rocky Mountains…said
that they had paroles with some Tobacco from the other side of the Rocky
Mountains…”; footnote mentions that this French word is “probably an
antique usage, meaning a semi-formal conference of some kind”.
Compare “palaver”, supposedly from Portuguese, in West African Pidgin
English and in North American English.

Page 25:  <Sauteaux or Knistineaux>:  “Our inland stranger begins by
degrees to speak the Sauteaux or Knistineaux tongue.”  The editor says he
has not been able to identify this language, but Sauteaux is one label for
Ojibwe, and Knistineaux is the common older term for Cree -- and Ojibwe and
Cree are such closely related Algonquian languages that they shade one into
another through a chain of dialects, thus the difficulty in specifying just
which one the stranger (the female berdache / shaman also recorded in David
Thompson’s journals) was using.

Page 27:  <Hyquo(y)as> and other spellings:  “…a…nation called the Culewits
[Quileutes] …kill a great many Beaver & dispose of them…to the Neweetians
[Nootkans] for Hyquoyas, etc.”  This is a reference to one of the kinds of
shell or bead “money” used among the Indians of the Northwest.

Page 30:  <Iaaggama Nibi>:  “After mature deliberation it was resolved that
Mr. D[avid] Stuart…should accompany him [sic] if possible to the banks of
the Wahnaaihee, or as he calls it Iaaggama Nibi, & there form an
establishment…”  Footnote points out that this probably refers to the
Okanagan River, where Stuart did establish a post, a plausible
identification given such early recordings of “Okanagan” as “Wackynakain”
and so on.  Could <Wahnaihee> reflect a final nasal vowel due to an Ojibwe
(?) accent, and is <Iaaggama Nibi> itself Algonquian?  The “him” mentioned
is the female berdache mentioned on page 25.