Emmons on CJ & sealing in Sitka, 1892
David D. Robertson
ddr11 at COLUMBIA.EDU
Thu Aug 7 05:11:03 UTC 2003
"[Gambling] songs had only a few words, long drawn out and repeated, and
were usually in Chinook Jargon, sometimes in another language. In June
1892 when a number of Canadian sealing schooners were seized in Bering Sea
and brought into Sitka, the crews of Vancouver Islanders and the Sitka
Tlingit inaugurated a season of gambling...although they did not speak
each other's language and could communicate only in a few words of English
or Chinook...The Sitkans sang in Chinook Jargon:
"We have a good heart,
You cannot catch us.
We will not cheat you."
(from page 420 of Emmons, George Thornton. The Tlingit Indians. Edited
by Frederica de Laguna. Seattle: U. of Washington, 1991.
[Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, #70.])
Does any of you recognize which song this must have been?
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