Obscure? Says who?

[Mike Cleven]

Morgan Miller wrote:
>
> Klahowya,
>
> I'm an IWW organizer in Portland and a beginning Chinook speaker. I've asked
> about the lyrics to Skookum Ryan and the union's historian is looking into
> locating them. I'll post if they are located.
>
> FWIW: The first IWW branch in Vancouver (1906) was made up of First Nation
> longshoremen. I'm sure there was more than some wawa on the docks.

Native workers in Vancouver's docks, canneries and mills were very often
Nootka, Kwakiutl, or from other parts of the province than the Squamish
of Burrard Inlet; Chinook would have been a necessity there, not just
because of the native presence but because it was also the mutual
working language of Asians, Scandinavians, long-time British Columbians
(of any extraction, be it Irish or Hawaiian) and anyone else who worked
in the trenches in BC in those days....

>
> Ikt Skookum Mamook Kunamokst (One Big Union?)

Ikt Skookum Kunamoxt (one big gathering), perhaps.



--
Mike Cleven
http://www.cayoosh.net (Bridge River Lillooet history)
http://www.hiyu.net (Chinook Jargon phrasebook/history)