[Fwd: Re: Mountain Beaver & Jargon & Chehalis & ... ?]

[Dave Robertson]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Mountain Beaver & Jargon & Chehalis & ... ?
Date: Wed, 2 May 2001 10:26:28 -0400
From: Dell Hymes <dhh4d at cstone.net>
To: ddr11 at columbia.edu


'boomer' not onlye ast of here (here being Oregon, although I'm now in
Virginia)

I remember Hiram Smith, a Wasco living at Warm Springs, although born near
Hood River, referring to a 'boomer squirrel'.  My impression is that he was
quoting,
i.e., 'what some people call a'.

>Mike,
>
>The thing is, "mountain beaver" is only so-called.
>
>It isn't a beaver, nor is it a muskrat.
>
>Apparently somewhere along the line, it used to be called "mountain boomer",
>some kind of continuation of a North American anglophone tradition of naming
>mysterious noisy animals of the forest "boomers".  (Viz. certain squirrels
>and birds farther East of here.)
>
>Weird, huh?
>
>Dave
>
>On Tue, 1 May 2001 21:33:24 -0700, Mike Cleven <ironmtn at BIGFOOT.COM> wrote:
>
>>"Alan H. Hartley" wrote:
>>>
>>> Bates, Hess & Hilbert's _Lushootseed Dictionary_ (1994) (Puget Sound
>>> Salish) has:
>>>
>>> s^áw'kwL [s-hacek, a-acute, laryngealized w, labialized k, barred ell]
>>> 'mountain beaver'; also recorded as s^aw'L and s^Ew'L [E = schwa]
>>
>>What I'm really not figuring out here is why the term "mountain beaver";
>>don't y'all Yankees and Hiyu Bostons have the word "muskrat" in your
>>vocabulary or am I missing something here?  It would strike me as odd
>>that HBC posts south of what became the 49th would ever confuse real
>>beaver with muskrat; sure they both have smelly tails but the fur
>>quality's quite a bit different IIRC.  What I mean here is you'd think
>>that fur-bearing animal terms would relate more either to HBC usage or
>>to the local argot (eena and nenamooks etc.); where the heck did
>>'mountain beaver' come from?  East of the Rockies, or is it a NW
>>invention?
>>
>>MC



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