/it'alapas/

[George Lang]

Franchère's "etalapass" was probably his rendering of LC _i-t'alapas_
'coyote' -- the trickster figure widely known in  American Indian but also
African and world folklore.

The way I understand it, Franchère was ineptly transcribing actual
Lower Chinook utterances, not (since it was say 1812) firmly settled
conventions in Jargon. He seems to have mistaken the ubiquitous
Coyote Trickster tales he kept getting news of for something like the
Gospels. So for "etalapass" he came up with the gloss "God, or the
Supreme Being."

Stripped of its LC pronominal marker i-, _i-t'alapas_ went right into
Jargon as _t'alEpas_.  In Grand Ronde "to become sneaky" is _chaku
t'alEpas khaku_.

Franchère waded into other depths, glossing "ekannum" (his capture
of LC_ i-kanum_)  as the "Good Spirit of the Water". It meant 'story or
myth' and still means this in Jargon.

There was a lot of confusion at Astoria.

Alexander Ross thought "etanimua" meant "prophet, priest".  But LC
_i-t'amanwas_ was the prenominalized form of 'Guardian Spirit',  the
vision figure young males and some young females sought during
their rites of passage into adulthood.

George