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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