Annals of Astoria

[Mike Cleven]

ahartley at D.UMN.EDU wrote:
>
> Dave Robertson wrote:
>
> > What about the several Iroquois personnel listed in the
> > "Annals"?  And conceivably any Nootka-based, and for that matter
> > Haida-based Jargon
>
> Definitely Iroquois! Haven't seen any evidence of Nootka contact except when
> the Tonquin and the Beaver trade around Vancouver Island.

Isn't there a tradition of intertribal contact/alliance between the
Nootka/Makah and the Chinooks that pre-dates the fur trade?  Weren't the
chiefly families related by marriage or something?  It's perhaps true
that there's no evidence of Chinook words in what we've seen of the
Nootka Jargon so far, e.g. in Jewitt's "low" speech wordlist and in the
Barclay Sound wordlist it seems to be the "low" Nootka spoken by
slave-castes, including Jewitt; or am I reaching here?

It's interesting to consider who Vancouver had on board for translators
on the inland sea; is anyone familiar enough with his logs to know
whether they used the Nootka Jargon with the locals, through an
interpreter most likely; it's been unclear to me in the counts I've read
exactly what they spoke to the chief of, say, Homulchesan (Xwm7'letsx7wn
or something like that in Squamish) at the mouth of Burrard Inlet; it
seems unlikely that Nootka was spoken there; I'd guess they'd taken on a
Straits Salish speaker somewhere en route, but what they spoke to
him/her remains an issue.  English pidgin mixed with Nootka Jargon,
maybe?

As for the Iroquois, a Company employee was a Company employee once you
signed on.  Whether you were from the Orkneys, a Metis from the
Prairies, or an Iroquois from Caughnawaga, you might get posted
anywhere, and probably welcomed the opportunity to "get out there"; and
promotion was primarily through experience, wouldn't you think?

MC

>
> Alan

--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (early BC history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Cayoosh Jargon phrasebook/history)