Puzzling over some CJ quotations re Qualchan, Owhi, Kanasket

[David D. Robertson]

Klahowya,

>From some correspondence I've been having with a person interested in
Eastern Washington's Indian wars, circa 1858, come the following snips
with my comments.  Does anyone else have interpretations to offer?

Hiyu mahsie,

--Dave R.


>last words of Kanasket, one of the leaders in the Cascade
>mountains, "Kanasket! Nawitka!--Tyee--Mamelouse nica--nica mamelouse
Bostons"
>translated as "Yes, Kanasket, chief, kill me, I kill Bostons (whites)."
.......I read this as something like a halting "Kanasket is a real chief;
[if you] kill me, I will have Americans killed.".............

>Qualchien [sic] started, and exclaimed ' Car? Where?
>The Colonel answered, --'Owhi, mittite yawa. Owhi is over there!'
>He gazed about him and repeated mechanically, --"Owhi, mittite yawa!"
........I agree with the translation of these lines........

>Qualchan begins shouting,
>"Copet six, stop my friends
>Wake mameloose nika, do not kill me
>nika potlatch hiyou chickamen, hiyou knitan, I will give you much money,
a
>great many horses
.........I also agree with this translation.............

>I think this section is mistranslated:
>spore nika mamaloose, nika hiyou siwashe silex,
>If you kill me a great many Indians will be angry
>
>"Spore" is probably "spose" of course. But I think "nika" means "I," not
>"you."
>Therefore, it may be that Qualchan was trying to say,
>"If I kill, I make Indians angry."
...............I understand the above as having a misprint; the first
occurrence of "nika" probably should be "mika", a common typo in old
sources, which were as a rule typeset by people who didn't know Chinook
Jargon(!); for the same reason and a couple others, the punctuation we
often see in old quotations of Jargon is screwy.  The reading then of this
sentence should be "Spose mika memaloose nika, hiyu siwash sollex."  This
exactly matches the given translation.