Marchand, Voyage autour du monde

[Ross Clark (FOA DALSL)]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David D. Robertson [mailto:ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU]
> Sent: Sunday, 30 June 2002 3:09 p.m.
> To: CHINOOK at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Subject: Marchand, Voyage autour du monde
>
>
> Etienne Marchand, "Voyage autour du monde", 1790-1792, Paris,
> n.d.  5 vols.
>
> (As cited in H.H. Bancroft, "History of Alaska, 1730-1885",
> San Francisco,
> A.L. Bancroft & Company, 1886, page 247.)
>
> Bancroft says that "one of the natives of Tchinkitane'
> (Sitka) complained
> to Marchand of a gun he had purchased of an English captain
> and broken in
> anger because it would 'only go crick, but never poohoo!'
> Marchand's Voy.,
> ii. 69."
>
> This "poohoo" is a good match for a broadly distributed Pacific NW
> onomatopoeia (and Chinook Jargon term) for explosive noises
> and events,
> from farting to gunshots.
>
> -- Dave

As an early term for "(sound of) gun" it is also not uncommon in the Pacific
Islands. It would take some time to get all my examples together, but I'd
like to publish something with a name like "The Poo Papers"...

Ross Clark