French-Chinook list

[Mike Cleven]

Terry Glavin wrote:
> hi mike.
> just a quick observation, the russian origin (er, french via russian) is
> possible, but my guess not on, for this reason: if, as i believe, the people
> simon fraser saw with guns were chilcotins, then the word they used for the
> guns at the time was likely the same word they were using (by the 1860s) for
> "musket" (and rifle) in the chilcotin language, which was a compound word
> literally meaning "rock in its mouth."
> later, calapeen - would be my guess.
> so.
> that's only my conjecture, but what the heck.
> cheers.
> t
>

Thanks Terry; I'll cc. this reply to the list so "they" can see your
comment.

The reference to Russian rifles in Fraser's journal was from the
'Askettih Nation', wasn't it? i.e. the Lillooets according to most
interpretations of the journal; the meeting with the Askettih was below
the Six Mile Rapids, which of course is firmly in Lillooet/Stl'atl'imx
territory.  Supposedly the 'Atnah Nation' in Fraser's journal were the
Chilcotin, but you know the Chilcotin more than anyone else around here,
so . . . . ???

My main issue is who the Askettih got their Russian rifles _from_, most
definitely in the depths of the Fraser Canyon whomever they really were,
if they weren't the Lillooets.  The Russians hadn't traded in the
Georgia Strait or up through the coastal inlets deep enough to reach any
possible Stl'atl'imx allies - the Sto:lo, for example, or the Homalhko
or Sechelt; and needless to say regular trade between those inlets and
Lillooet Country doesn't seem all that likely given the terrain (this
isn't to say the Homalhko didn't make it up out of Toba Inlet into the
Upper Lillooet River, which they surely did; same with the Sechelts but
of course they could come via Squamish country).  The Nuxalk or Haisla
seem a possibility, but steady trade between those peoples and the
central Fraser Canyon via Tsh'ilqotin territory doesn't seem to have
been likely.  And these rifles certainly didn't come up via the Nicolas
or Okanagan, through territory which no one had seen and out of the
Columbia Basin, which of course the Russians hadn't penetrated.  Perhaps
trade from the Secwepemc <= Carrier <= Gitksan <= Coastal Tsimshian?


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