[humm]

[pasxapu]

See comments below.
<snip>
> > Its broader use is found in [humm opoots] or literally ?stinks-his
tail?
> > or Skunk (see Thomas dict.).
>
> The other term for skunk is "skubbyou"; which areas was this used in
vs.
> which areas "humm opoots" is found?

This may be from Chinook Proper as suggested in Gibbs, [skupiyu]
'skunk'.  There is also CP [o...pinpin] 'skunk' (I can't read the second
consonant in Johnson dissertation).  Then too is [peces] 'bad' which is
too to mean 'skunk' by way of extension.  Thus, it seems that the Thomas
dictionary is the sole source for [humm opoots] so far as I can tell.

> > My own childhood experience confirms the Tsimshian (Sm?algyax)
English
> > interpretation.  As long as I can remember, we kids (that is, those
of
> > us on the Umatilla reservation) often used this CJ idiom to refer to
the
> > act of ?going to the bathroom?.  For example, one time, I was
assisting
> > a old, Indian blind man to the bathroom and he said, ?I want to take
a
> > hum!? meaning he wanted to use the urinal.  At times, it can by
> > extension even refer to the?(ahem) male genitalia.
>
> It goes without saying that men often hum when "in the act",
> particularly urination; esp. with a nice view of the outdoors as was
> often enough the case in the old days.  Perhaps ultimately this was
> onomatopaeic.  As for odours of flatulence (to try to coin a
euphemism),
> someone smelling one might well go "hummm" ("I wonder who did that?").

I tend to seriously doubt this attribution since [hum] is a well
established adjective in CJ dictionary sources to mean 'smell, stench,
odor, putrid' and so forth.

> > I suppose this may be offensive to some, but I should not have to
make
> > apologies for the diversity and genius of language and language use.
> > Anyway, it is of interest to this list since it is a documented CJ
idiom
> > rather than a simple CJ expression that apparently had or continues
to
> > have wide usage.
>
> Biological functions and anatomical designations should hardly be
> considered "vulgar"; indeed shame concerning such matters is often an
> importation of European cultural views on the subject.
>
> In the context you've raised I wanted to mention that one of the items
> that surfaced in the list a couple of months ago concerning Jargon
> usage/borrowing among the central-northern BC Carrier (Dakelh and
> Denazdli) mentioned that many elders of those tribes, being faithful
> Christians at the time, disdained learning Jargon from the non-native
> rivermen as it was "full of vulgarities/opbscenities", suggesting
> perhaps that a great deal of Jargon never made it to the printed page
> for reasons of propriety; there were no printed lexicons compiled in
> north-central BC, of course, most of these having originated in the
> Lower Columbia-Puget Sound-Victoria, and even diarists seem to have
made
> no mention of these words and their possible range of meanings.  But
it
> does suggest that there may have been a great deal of, um, social
> flexibility to things you could say in the Jargon, or how "colourful"
> Jargon speech may actually have been.

I imagine that the contemporary CJ dictionary makers will sadly miss out
on the more interesting uses of CJ.  One would have to cull the
trappers/traders journals for some of this stuff and I do recall that
there is a published reference on trapper/trader language somewhere.

> > Oh, and yes, I almost forgot.  I believe [chuk] or [chak] ?water? is
a
> > borrowed CJ term in Yakama (Sahaptin) and means essentially the same
as
> > in [chaaksha] ?I am urinating?.
>
> Somewhere in one of the frontier histories of BC "mamook chuck" shows
up
> for "making water", with the same meaning.

Another source to consider is [piyu] which might be from english,
french?

Later,
Phil Cash Cash (cayuse/nez perce)